Gansey Nation

I’ve got a new gansey.  Or rather, not a new one, exactly: an old one I’d forgotten I had. You see, we’re still slowly sorting out our stuff and unpacking, and Margaret found it buried in a suitcase (and in the process inventing the science of gansey archaeology). I must have knit it back in the eighties or nineties, in the innocent days before blood pressure, hip-hop, or reality TV had been invented.

Lord, I feel old: can you imagine, I’m approaching the end of my third decade knitting ganseys? This jumper is probably older than most of the England cricket team. It’s like finding a photograph album in the attic, all the ghosts of your past waiting behind the door of memory to jump out waving party streamers, clutching a bottle of Theakston’s Old Peculier and shouting “Surprise!”

The “I” who knit it—bless me, so tightly it could probably stand upright on its own—is trapped in the aspic of time along with the gansey itself, long ago. But one thing I do know: it’s not my size, and could never have fitted me, unless I planned to use it as a corset. (Although, now I come to think of it—gansey lingerie; could it catch on, do you think? Possible marketing slogan: “The Rough With The Smooth…” Really, it sells itself.)

The Icehouse, John o’Groats

Ahem. Turning our attention away from transvestite fishermen for a moment, my current, present-day, loosely knit gansey for the chap with the comfortable figure, is finally entering the end-game. I’ve finished the first sleeve and have embarked on the second. I ended up with 108 stitches just before the cuff which I decreased down to 100 stitches, comprising 25 ribs. (I like to be able to push my sleeves up, and that number of stitches with the turned-over cuff keeps a nice grip on my wrists without being too tight.)

Harbour entrance, Wick

In other news, we’ve just passed the summer solstice, the longest day. (Time to start thinking about that Christmas list now the nights are drawing in…) Caithness has largely escaped the mini heat-wave the rest of Britain is basking in just now—we’ve got grey skies, cool winds and that sort of persistent mizzle that makes your windscreen wipers howl like a wookie who’s just hit his thumb with a hammer.

And I’ve got to decide what to do with this new/old gansey. I feel a bit like Viktor Frankenstein if he opened a chest and found a cadaver he’d been working on decades ago—do I put it back in its suitcase? Unravel it and knit something else with the yarn? Start dieting? Or else bury it in the garden in the dead of night with a 2.25mm needle through its heart…?

We’ve had a taste of summer this last week, with blue skies, high fluffy clouds, sunshine, and the kind of heat that makes a Highlander strip to a T-shirt and shorts—as if there wasn’t enough sadness in life—yes, we’re talking a sweltering 15ºC. Even someone as sun-averse as I have been lured outdoors, so that my head and neck are now bright pink, while the rest of my body remains the colour of semi-skimmed milk—when I take my shirt off I look like a partly-eaten coconut ice.

I read this week that the White House made the classic mistake of hitting “reply all” to an email, and so revealing the name of the CIA’s top man in Kabul to everyone on the mailing list. I’ve never done anything quite this crass on email—I prefer to be dumb and gauche up close and personal, face to face.

A Sunny Day in Caithness . . .

Once upon a time we were Morris dancing at a festival in York, when the city was full of tourists. The various sides were supposed to take turns dancing in a public square, once dance each. We were up next, but frustratingly the side before us decided to do several dances, hogging the limelight and keeping everyone waiting. I was pretty keyed up, we all were, because if you’re a Morris dancer your usual audience is a couple of resigned people and a dog outside the pub, so to perform in front of hundreds of tourists with cameras is quite a big deal.

One of the dancers in this side wasn’t very good. As time passed, the tension in our party grew; so by way of relieving it I began to be extraordinarily witty at this guy’s expense: I criticised his posture, his coordination, his balance and his dancing, everything from his galleys to his capers. I didn’t really mean any of it, of course. But the Devil took possession of my mouth and I flew…

…right up to the point when a woman standing in front of me turned round furiously and snapped, “That’s my son you’re talking about,” and stalked off.

The echoes of that moment will resonate across the universe until the light of the last star has perished in icy darkness. Sometimes when I read of scientists detecting what they think is a faint trace of the Big Bang, it’s really just the ripple of that moment, travelling through interstellar space at the speed of shame.

Turning hastily to ganseys, I’ve finished the neck and started on the first sleeve. The armhole measured 8.75 inches from gusset to shoulder join, and I’m knitting at about 8.75 stitches to the inch, so I cast on 151 stitches in the round, using the famous “suck it and see” approach. I’ve just decreased the hell out of the gusset, and am on the sleeve proper, which will eventually be about 18 inches long plus a 3 inch cuff; I’m decreasing at a rate of 2 stitches every 7th row, so I should have in the region of 90-something stitches by the time I start the cuff.

. . . and a stormy one

Finally, I’m indebted to my friend Dav for the news that Glasgow University is looking for a knitter-in-residence this October, if you’re feeling adventurous. “Knit is”, they say, “the pin-up craft for sustainability, creativity and authenticity”. I shan’t be applying as my days as a pin-up are, sadly, long behind me—that, and when I knit I look like someone impersonating a chicken laying an egg—but if you’re feeling creative and authentic, why not give it a go? (http://knithistory.academicblogs.co.uk/knitter-in-residence/ )

Dunbeath is another small harbour down the coast from Wick, built around 1800 and once the home of upwards of a hundred fishing boats all crammed tightly into the shelter of the bay, now open to the sea and the sky and the kittiwakes nesting in the cliffs—and to the occasional busload of shivering New Mexican tourists stopping off on their way north to Orkney.

We were there on Saturday, and it was cold and grey, with a bitter east wind (early summer, in other words). I have a friend who tricks her dog into going out in the pouring rain by standing in the doorway and throwing a tennis ball; the poor New Mexicans had much the same look of betrayal as her dog as the wind hit them like a hail of machine gun bullets and they realised the tour guides had shut the bus doors behind them.

It’s another beautiful Caithness coastal location, not hemmed in by cliffs like so many of the little coves used for fishing, but spaciously wide and open. Visibility was exceptional, offering a fine view of the North Sea oil platforms, plus another large, square building like an offshore multi-storey car park I haven’t noticed before. (It’s either another oil installation, a James Bond supervillain headquarters, or a secret military base; if this blog mysteriously vanishes in the next few days you can draw your own conclusions.)

The Icehouse

Dunbeath is still a working harbour, but only for the odd creel fishing boat. There’s a large fishing store, a salmon bothy and an ice house back from the days when they used to collect ice from the river to store the salmon. It’s another great place to visit, perfect for wandering along the pier and thinking of the good old days—unless perhaps you’re from New Mexico, in which case you add another pullover and plan a messy and painful revenge on your tour guides.

On the gansey I have now finished the back, and started on the front. As I mentioned in the comments last week, I decided at the last minute to opt for the traditional rig ‘n’ fur shoulders, as opposed to a Scottish patterned shoulder strap. I was concerned that the jumper was already quite intricate, especially with the double diamond lattice patterns; I think a shoulder strap would be too much, and detract from the overall effect. The simpler knit and purl ridges will hopefully offset the body and sleeves and allow them to shine.

Finally, I see we’ve been getting a number of visitors referred this way from the Knitting Paradise website, and the excellent gansey group. I’d just like to say welcome to new readers, and I hope you find the website useful. If you ever want to get in touch directly, or want to query anything in the ‘Knitting techniques’ section, just drop us a line via the contact form.