When sorrows come, as Shakespeare observed in an idle moment, they come not single spies but in battalions. Well, last week they came not so much in battalions but in divisions, corps and entire blasted armies.
It all came to head on “Black Wednesday” as my biographers will probably term it: the mouth infection and the shattered tooth we knew about. The broken shower we pass over in silence; these things happen. Even the publisher’s rejection letter was not altogether unexpected. But the inattentive cyclist who collided with my car and was sent crashing to the tarmac was, I feel, a little unfair.
It was a classic proof of the principle in physics that only one material object at a time can occupy the same piece of three-dimensional space; in this case, despite the cyclist’s best efforts, my car had the prior claim. It wasn’t my fault—he just made a right turn without looking or signalling and ran smack into me as I was overtaking him; I had witnesses and luckily he was unhurt, though shaken. Even so, it was all very unpleasant, not least the thought of what might have been.
Well—I’ve had a quiet word with Fate, and asked him nicely if he wouldn’t mind easing off a shade, and letting some other poor devil cop it for a bit. I mean to say, really.
The gansey continues apace and I’ve started the pattern. From the edge it runs as follows: diamond (19 sts); double cable (18 sts); chevron (27 sts); double cable (18 sts); diamond (19 sts); double cable (18 sts); chevron (27 sts); double cable (18 sts); diamond (19 sts).
It’s going to be 28 inches long. Now for the maths bit: I need to work out when to start the pattern to make sure I get an exact number of diamonds. There are 17 rows per diamond, so 7 diamonds is therefore 7 x 17 = 119 rows. I have to remember to factor in the “rig ’n’ fur” shoulder strap, which is another 12 rows; and a couple of double purl row/knit row ridges as a lower border (8 more stitches).
WWKIP
This gives me 119 + 12 + 8 = 139 rows for the pattern and shoulder. I’m averaging 10 rows per inch, so that’s 13.9 inches (call it 14 inches) for the pattern—so if I start the pattern after 14 inches of welt and body I should end up with something in the region of 28 inches in length. (I hope this makes sense! It almost does to me…)
Frogpond
A warm greeting this week to Sharon and everyone who took part in the World Wide Knit in Public Day event down by the harbour at Brough Bay on Saturday. The aim was to knit a series of gansey-pattern squares, and I took along a selection of ganseys just for fun. It was great to see so many people there, and—given that it was 7ºC and raining—the longest day is just a week away, folks—great to see the wood fire going strong!
Finally this week, in parish notices, Den has sent me some pictures of her gansey, which is currently a work in progress. It’s a Filey pattern, and you can see it emerge in the baby pictures here. It’s an intricate pattern, and should look very well knitted up—but then you can’t go wrong with Filey, can you? In fact, we should all form a conga line at this point and sing “You can’t go wrong with Filey” to the same tune as the Simpsons “You Don’t Win Friends With Salad…”
As regular readers will know, I’ve been working my way through the medical dictionary looking for interesting diseases. Well, this week I’ve reached the letter M, for Mouth Infection, and yes, I’ve got one. It’s an uncomfortable thing to have, because my mouth is full of sores and my tongue feels large and dry, as if I’ve had a transplant from a minke whale, and it’s got a nasty coating which looks as though elves are growing cauliflowers on it while I sleep.
I went to the pharmacist and she asked me to stick out my tongue. I did so and she recoiled with an involuntary squeal (“Eurgh!” she cried. “That’s horrible!”—which didn’t go very far to making me feel good about myself.) Whatever the problem is, it hasn’t responded to treatment so it’s a trip to the doctor now and no doubt farewell to the last shreds of my personal dignity.
Good progress on the gansey, though: I’m now almost twelve inches up the body, and in another week I might even be in a position to think about—be still my beating heart—gussets. And maybe even the pattern. I keep checking regularly and I’m maintaining a fairly dependable eight stitches to the inch, so I’m as confident as I can be that this one will come out right. I like the colour, too—there’s a sort of iridescent red thread woven among the brownish-purple that gives it an electric shimmer when the sunlight catches it just so.
Finally this week congratulations to Margaret, whose excellent photographs have won her the accolade of Student of the Month at the Photoion Photography School – you can read more, and see more of her photos here – though of course you can keep seeing them here too.
I’ve been trying to think of which famously resilient historical hero I remind myself of in going back to basics with this new gansey after the relative failure of the last one—King Alfred and the cakes? Robert the Bruce and the spider?
No, after mulling it over I realise that the person I have in mind is Jack Skellington from The Nightmare before Christmas who, you will recall, flirted briefly with being cuddly Santa Claus (with disastrous results) before embracing his real nature as the Pumpkin King, scary master of Halloween.
Who was I kidding? After straying from the path of true wisdom with loose stitch gauges and big, floppy pullovers and other such abominations I have recanted, done my penance, and been readmitted to the congregation (after extra whippings on appeal). So I’m back in the groove with a nice, tight, 8 stitches-to-the-inch piece of knitting, stiff enough to be used as a space marine’s body armour—fisherman’s iron, reinforced with Kevlar. It’s good to be back.
I’m using Frangipani damson yarn, a fetching sort of purplish-brown colour. The pattern when I get to it will be Donald Thomson of Thurso’s pattern, as featured in Rae Compton, pages 133-137, suitably adjusted for size. (I’ll chart up the pattern another week, but it’s a good strong pattern, and of course it’s from Caithness.)
I thought I’d share this with you. I come across all sorts of odd little facts in my job, and here’s a factette that caught my fancy this week. We’ve got a photocopy in the archives of a letter from 1801, the time of the Napoleonic Wars (and Jonathan Strange, for lovers of BBC fantasy drama). Britain was fighting most of Continental Europe at the time, and a dozen Dutch fishermen had just been taken prisoner. The question for the Government was, what to do with them?
As it happened, the harbour and town to the south of Wick was just being built, to provide employment and to relieve some of the hardships caused by the Highland Clearances. The letter, the original of which is in The National Archives, states:
“ … and as the Herring Fishery on the Coast of Caithness is now beginning, I would beg leave to recommend your sending two or three of them to that Country by any vessel that may be about to sail from Leith to Wick or Thurso, consigning them to the care of Major MacLeay the chief residing magistrate of Wick who will take care to provide immediate employment for them.”
Isn’t that great? A rare example of enlighted Government thinking—a sort of 19th century Community Service Order!
Finally this week, Lynne has sent me one of the most charming uses for gansey patterning I think I’ve ever come across. Again, I won’t spoil the surprise, but you can see for yourselves by clicking here. And, the ever-productive Judit has finished another splendid gansey, this time in claret – just go to the bottom of page 2.
I gave a talk to the Family History Society last week, looking at what you can find out about people who lived in Victorian Caithness using some of the less common sources. And while I was thinking about how best to showcase the registers of fishing boats with a Wick (WK) registration I had an idea.
The crew of the Mary and Maggie in 1910 – Donald Angus centre, holding the cup [image is deliberately small to respect copyright]
Both of the Wick ganseys I’ve knitted have been based on a photograph of Donald Angus’s 1910 prize-winning crew of the Mary and Maggie (WK.29), which appears in both Hetty Munro and Rae Compton’s “They Lived By the Sea” and Michael Pearson’s “Traditional Knitting”.
So I looked the Mary and Maggie up in the register, and this is what I found: the boat was registered in 1899 and one of the joint owners was a Charles Angus of Thurso, whose occupation was fisherman. Now, Angus isn’t a very common name up here, so someone called Charles Angus who was also a fisherman wasn’t hard to find: in fact there was only one, and he lived in Shore Street.
Entry for the “Mary and Maggie” in the register of fishing boats [image courtesy of Caithness Archive Centre]
I found his death certificate online, and learned he died in 1927, aged 72. This was interesting, because the register says that the Mary and Maggie’s registration was cancelled in November 1928, with the vessel “a total loss” – so the boat only survived its owner by a year.
But when I looked him up in the 1901 census I found something rather sweet. For the name of his wife was Margaret, which the Scots shorten to Maggie; and his two daughters were called Mary and Maggie. He named the boat after the women in his life, the old softy. Isn’t that great? (Donald, who would skipper the boat in 1910 and win the prize cup, was just 17 in 1901 and still living at home.)
1901 Census entry for Charles Angus and family
It doesn’t make a lot of difference; but it makes me feel a little closer to the people in that photograph, somehow. One of them, at least, isn’t just a face and a name.
Now, gansey news. As you’ll see, I’ve been making good progress; but there is a problem, which you can see if you look closely at the top couple of diamonds compared with the rest. They look different, don’t they?
You see, after I knitted the Lopi jumper last Christmas, my gansey stitch gauge went all to hell, and ever since I’ve struggled to rein it in. As a result, my last couple of ganseys have bloated and sagged, like a well-fed burgess after a civic function, undoing his trouser buttons with a contented sigh and letting his waist expand like a cottage loaf in the oven. Now I quite like baggy jumpers, so that was fine, but something’s gone wrong with this one. It’s too big, too loose, to the point that the pattern has lost definition.
Detail of pattern (it’s not actually pink!) – note sharper diamonds at the top
I put it on a strict diet and exercise regime and deliberately knit the last couple of inches more tightly, and you can see the results for yourselves: the diamond pattern is crisper and clearer, better defined, compared with those that came before.
Clouds over Wick Harbour
I’ve tried to persuade myself I can live with it, but I can’t, so I’m going to stop knitting this one and rip it out and start again. It seems drastic, but to be honest it’s a minor nuisance, nothing more. (In fact, if I didn’t have to confess on this blog in front of hundreds of ninja gansey-knitting readers, I’d barely give it a thought – but there’s nothing like a public confession to stop you from getting above yourself, is there?)
There won’t be a blog next week, not because I have to be whipped from one side of the town to the other in punishment for what I’ve done, but because Margaret is away just now (I thought she was just knitting shawls; turns out it was a lace rope ladder to climb down the wall of her turret and escape across the fields) and I’m going to take a break and think about what to do next. See you in a fortnight!
Evening all. Before we get started, I’d like to flag up a couple of slight changes to the website you may have noticed. First of all, we’ve amended the Gallery pages so that the ganseys are grouped by region of origin now; basically I’ve been knitting so long the list was scrolling off the bottom of the screen! So hopefully this will make them more accessible, as well as useful.
Secondly, we’ve added a PayPal button to the left-hand border. This is so that anyone who wishes to make a contribution to the costs of running the site, and keeping me supplied with Guernsey 5-ply yarn, cups of coffee and, ahem, bars of tablet, can now do so whenever they like.
(Important note: any contributions are entirely voluntary, and I won’t know who has or hasn’t made one. It won’t the blindest bit of difference to the way Margaret and I respond to comments or emailed queries. It’s entirely up to you. The site will be free to access, just as it is now. But if you’ve enjoyed reading the blog, or if you’ve ever found the techniques useful in your own knitting projects, and wanted to make a donation, well, now you can.)
The alternatives were to make the site subscription-only, or allow advertising, and we really didn’t want to go down that road. And speaking of roads, have you ever considered buying a new Hyundai Paracetamol land cruiser? A unique blend of rotational steering, traction engine technology and organic chemistry; for a headache-free drive contact your local dealer now!
Oh, I’m most terribly sorry—I can’t think what came over me.
Where was I? Oh, yes. I’ve reached that exciting part of knitting a gansey when the body is jettisoned like the first stage of a Saturn V rocket, flaring away and falling back to earth, and the small but dedicated crew soar onwards, free of the dead weight, to their goal—in their case, landing on the moon; in mine, finishing the back of the jumper. It’s always good to reach this stage, even though I have to pay close attention, as the pattern is now reversed every other row.
As you’ll see from the picture Margaret is still taking commissions from Galadriel for hand-knitted lingerie. It’s nice to have the work, of course, but it’s a bugger knitting with thistledown and unicorn hair, even with a unicorn farm just down the coast, and then it has to be washed in dryads’ tears or else it shrinks—luckily, though, some of them voted Liberal Democrat in last week’s general election so tears weren’t hard to come by…
Ah, yes, the election. Scotland has voted overwhelmingly for the Scottish National Party. It’s both a complete shock and yet hardly a surprise: the way the main UK parties have been treating Scotland recently I almost expected a shipment of tea to be dumped in Wick harbour by men dressed as Native Americans. Now the whole country seems gripped by a sort of wild uncertain excitement, like a nuclear physicist who’s just pressed the large button on the console and is suddenly wondering if in his calculations he remembered to carry the one…
As someone who preserves the documentary DNA of history it’s interesting to find myself living through these times: history, as they say, never stops.
When sorrows come, as Shakespeare observed in an idle moment, they come not single spies but in battalions. Well, last week they came not so much in battalions but in divisions, corps and entire blasted armies.
Well—I’ve had a quiet word with Fate, and asked him nicely if he wouldn’t mind easing off a shade, and letting some other poor devil cop it for a bit. I mean to say, really.
