INTRODUCTION
In this section I want to share with you how I go about knitting a gansey, and some of the tips and tricks I’ve learned down the years. Now, many of the techniques I’m describing here are just basic knitting techniques – and I am acutely aware that many of my readers will know more about them I do, and will either be able to do them better, or will know better, easier ways of doing them.
But I’ve tried to write this for the very beginner – someone like the me I was 20 years ago, but hopefully better looking. Anyway, I hope you find it useful – please feel free to use the comment boxes to share your experiences, whether you use these techniques or different ones, and if you have any suggestions as to how I could do it better I’d be delighted to hear from you.
Sections:
Preparation
- Equipment
- Stitch gauges and sizing
- Choosing a pattern and adjusting it to fit
- Worked example: calculating a gansey
Techniques for knitting
Well done Gordon and Co, this is marvellous
Hi Nigel,
Glad you like it! I hope it proves a useful resource, so if anyone finds any errors, or things that could be explained more clearly, or even if they still have any questions, they’ll let us know and we can keep on improving the site as a resource.
Thanks for the positive feedback, as ever,
Gordon
Just one wee thing.
A search button would be handy now!
For me, too, now I come to think of it. Good call! We’ll see what we can do.
Gordon
Gordon,
This is excellent and brilliant. I am considering making one for the s-i-l, Jim, who, when he saw the small example I had made for Owen (age 5), declared he wanted one just like it. I talked him into wool (rather than acrylic (is this considered a word never to be uttered, like “He who must not be named”?) and he wants a “hoodie” version like Owen’s. I thought I might spur the decision on by showing your website, which was down for these great improvements. So, his sweater comes after the socks requested by Owen (greenish and just like mine) and Evie (almost 3)(sparkely pink). Will send piccies of Owen’s sweater.
House in full disarray; bedroom end torn apart, bathrooms gone, framing done on both levels. Glad to hear you are back knitting.
Hi Gail, and thank you – we aim to please.
As for acrylic, I’m a constant disappointment to Margaret (who has standards) by often preferring it to wool, but thanks to judicious application of a cattle prod I’m slowly getting conditioned into the correct opinion.
I’ve never tried a hoodie version, which we associate in the UK with disaffected teenagers hanging around shopping malls, or getting drunk and disorderly, but using the hoods to hide their faces from the cctv cameras. (Come to think of it, you might like to ask Jim what he gets up to on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons?) My advice would be for him to buy a hat, possibly a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker, which I think would look well on him.
I’m thinking of incorporating a section to display ganseys, and gansey-inspired knitting by other people, which is likely to be a broader range of styles than mine. What do you think?
Good luck with the rebuilding. If you’ve lost the bathrooms, you may be grateful for a bit of rain, or else it’s back to the bucket with a hole in the bottom suspended from a branch in the garden, I daresay.
Cheers,
Gordon