Gansey Nation

It’s been a hectic week, what with one thing and another (and weather – what’s that all about?), so apologies for the delay in getting this week’s blog up. It’s bad enough having to alternate between the real world and the imaginary one I spend a lot of time in, but when you throw Scotland into the mix it all gets a bit much. I’m creating parallel universes in my head, and that’s bound to muck up the time-line sooner or later.

So I thought I’d devote this week’s blog to something I’ve been saving for a snowy day, namely being rude about the clergy. Well, all right, not the entire clergy – fine body of men and women, on the whole, I expect – but just one: Richard Rutt, former bishop of Leicester, author of “A History of Hand Knitting” originally published by Batsford in 1987.

Now what, I hear you ask, annoys me so much about the bish? Well, for an answer I suggest you pick up a copy of his history and turn to pages 129-134. Here, in a section titled “Fisherman’s Knitting” he turns his episcopal attention to the place of ganseys in the history of knitting. Now, of course, it’s important to bear in mind that he’s writing a history, the first of its kind apparently, so he’s naturally inclined to take an academic approach; but it’s a shame he isn’t more generous to his sources.

How patronising is this? “Some of these books, notably Rae Compton’s The Complete Book of Traditional Guernsey and Jersey Knitting (1985), have shown a sense of history, but only Mary Wright, in Cornish Guernseys and Knitfrocks (1979) has tackled the history of the subject seriously. Like Michael Pearson in various publications that culminated in his Traditional Knitting (1984), all these writers have concentrated on the technique of knitting the fisherman’s jersey and on collecting patterns…” (p.129)

Now, speaking as an historian (author, I’ll have you know, of the best-selling Radnorshire in Old Photographs which briefly topped the best-seller lists for books about, er, Radnorshire in old photographs) if there’s one thing history teaches us, it is that interpretations of history are a matter of fleeting opinion. It’s all a point of view, and every generation comes along and reinterprets what their parents thought was true (remember when the British Empire was regarded as a Good Thing?).

So, for myself, I’m delighted that Gladys Thompson and her successors devoted their time to collecting patterns and not “tackling the history of the subject seriously”. Who cares? Which would you rather have? A history book about a dying art, or an instruction manual on how to recreate it, and renew it? That’s the difference between history and craft, and only a historian like Bishop Rutt would say the history of a craft is more important than the craft itself.

And here’s a challenge for all of us: “Though Gladys Thompson and others already mentioned … have stimulated a limited revival of handknitted jerseys, one rarely sees a garment of the quality worn 50 or 60 years ago…” (p.134). To arms, citizens! (Aux armes, citoyens!) Or to needles at least (“Aux aiguilles a tricoter citoyens!”).

Mind you, the rest of the book’s pretty good…

Oh, that’s right, now I remember why I prefer to start my ganseys with a ribbed welt.

It’s Week 3 and I’m a couple of inches into the body, plain knitting in the round: and the garter stitch welt-flaps flop around like sheets hung out to dry on washing day in a strong gale. The thing is, ribbed welts naturally concertina inwards, which makes the stitches easy to manipulate round the needles; but a garter welt remains actual size, and that makes it harder to manage the stitches. So I’m forever stopping to coax them round with both hands to get them distributed evenly.

And then, just to make it more interesting, the plain knitting curls over the tops of the needles like a very frothy head on a freshly-drawn pint of beer… So all in all progress hasn’t been quite as smooth as I could have wished!

You’ll see from the pictures that I’ve decided to add my initials to the front of the body, just above the welt close to one of the fake seam stitches. The letters are adapted from those in Rae Compton’sComplete Book of Traditional Guernsey and Jersey Knitting, page 60, which I find work pretty well. Adding your initials is, of course, a high-risk strategy – if you’ve miscalculated and the gansey turns out to be way too big or too small you can’t easily give it away to someone else whom it fits without having to explain yourself, which can be awkward. So this is something of a declaration of intent on my part. But I’ve always wanted one in this pattern, so I figure it’s worth it.

Now I’m knitting in the round, I’ve also been reminded of another problem of hand knitting directly from these 500g cones – the yarn naturally twists and twists until it’s twisted itself into knots, and keeping it constantly untangled can be a right nuisance. I’ve devised a cunning plan to overcome this, however, which involves placing the cone on the top of our window curtain rails after each session, and letting the knitting dangle freely below. After a very few minutes it’s untangled itself, and you’re ready to go again. (The only thing to remember is to ensure that the stitches on your needles are pushed far away from the points, so they don’t pull off and drop as your knitting spins and untwists. Oh yes – and make sure your cone weighs more than your knitting…)

Finally, here’s a question: has a gansey ever featured in a novel?

New Year, new pullover…

The intention is to include more technical detail as I go this time, which I hope to work up once it’s finished into a comprehensive “How to” technical section for the website. To kick off, here’s a picture of all the parts you’ll need to make a gansey: (1) Yarn; (2) DPNs; (3) Pattern; (4) Graph paper; (5) Calculator; (6) Tape measure; (7) Circular needles; (8) Scissors; (9) Tapestry needle. I use 2.25mm needles: the circular ones are 80cm long, and the double-pointed ones are 12 inches. (Disappointingly, you don’t seem to be able to get 2.25mm 12 inch dpns any more; so the ones I use are getting pretty beat up after all these years – the finish is scratched off the points, they’re all bent out of shape – but I’m too old to switch to shorter needles. Move with the times? I don’t think so!)

I understand that experienced knitters make swatches to find out their stitch gauge; in my case it’s taken me about 20 ganseys to achieve the same result, but either way, my gauge for a pattern with cables is about 9 stitches to the inch, or 8.5 for plain knitting. So I know that a 48-inch chest in the round without cables will take 408 stitches, or 204 per side.

I’ve decided to knit a plain pattern, that seen most commonly on Henry Freeman of Whitby’s gansey; a man who deserves to be remembered for being the sole survivor of the 1861 Whitby lifeboat disaster, and for marrying his wife’s sister after his wife died (the dog). It’s always been one of my favourites, bands of plain rows alternating with a knit 2/purl 2 textured checkerboard effect – very effective, especially in a dark colour like navy when the sun angles across it to pick out the contours. (You can see an example on the bottom panel of Gavin’s ‘Llandrindod’ gansey here.)

When I say this is going to be plain, I also mean that I’m not going to start the pattern till I start the underarm gussets. There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, and most obviously, that’s the way the pattern was in the old photographs. But it’s also being knit in navy blue, and I sometimes struggle to see the stitches clearly in dark wool, unless it’s under bright light; and finally, given that I’m about to start a new job in a new town, I might be a touch distracted now and then. So, best to keep it simple.

Another change from the last gansey, is the welt. Unusually for me, I’ve decided to knit this in two separate pieces, in garter stitch, one for the front and one for the back, instead of my customary knit 2/purl 2 ribbed welt. Plain borders like this were quite common back in the day, and get joined at the top edge on the last row to make the first round of the body. (They have the added advantage that, being flat and knit back-and-forth, they don’t get twisted on the cast-on row!)

Casting on is crude but effective. The first “stitch” is a slip knot on the left-hand needle, pulled tightish, but left loose enough to pass a needle through. The second stitch is knit through the knot’s loop and placed beside it on the left-hand needle. Then, each subsequent stitch that is cast on is achieved by inserting the right-hand needle in between the most recent two stitches on the left needle; yarn is looped over the tip as it protrudes through the reverse side, the needle is withdrawn bringing the loop of yarn with it, and this new stitch is slipped onto the left-hand needle – and so on. I use differently-coloured wool to mark a certain number of stitches cast on – in this case, one marker every 50 stitches – to make the counting easier (see illustration).

After the cast-on row, I always make the next 2 rows purl rows (seen from the right side) – it makes the bottom edge chunkier, and looks suitably robust. With this current welt, after that, I’m just alternating knit and purl rows till the welt is the correct length ( an inch or two), with a couple of knit stitches each side as a border.

By the way, you’ll notice I haven’t given any thought to the pattern yet. That’s because it’s such a simple pattern it can easily be adapted to however many stitches there are, and sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof…

So it begins!