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Explore the Gansey Tradition of Scotland
Thanks for stopping by the Nomadic Knits blog! I was fortunate to receive a copy of The Gansey Knitting Sourcebook by Di Gilpin and Sheila Greenwell and to ask them some questions about the book and Gansey sweaters.I hope you enjoy reading their answers as much as I did. The book is both informative and inspiring. I do believe I've fallen in love with yet another style of knitting.💕Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
Sheila and I have been working together for ten years now! I started my company 40 years ago on the Isle of Skye. We work from an amazing studio on the Balcaskie Estate in the East Neuk of Fife. We create our own yarns and design for fashion houses and our brand! I am very involved in Regenerative Textiles Scotland, using local fleece to create yarn and working with British Mills and producers.
What inspired you to write this book?
A love of Gansey Knitting! Having been inspired from childhood, where I grew up on the coast of East Yorkshire. Gansey knitting is delightfully complex and challenging too, which I adore. Lots of numbers and patterns and seamlessness! The history is also incredible and gives us a deep insight into the lives of the Fisher Girls, who knitted many of them, and to the lives of the Fisher Folk.
What were the most challenging/fun parts of creating this book?
So much fun to create designs based on Gansey knitting but in a new modern way. There are so many brilliant books of Gansey traditional patterns I wanted to experiment and encourage knitters to take Gansey to their hearts and to experiment with it too.
Can you share a bit of the history of Gansey Knitting?
For me the Gansey, in all its complexity and beauty, represents the harmony between the utilitarian and art. Created out of necessity, the density of the handknitted fabric, with an incredible tension of up to 60sts to 10cms, keeps the wearer warm in the face of the coldest of days. The wool, worsted spun and plyed by 5, wears forever and develops an almost shiny surface with time and wear. Often created in dark blue indigo for practicality, the intense patterning raises itself out of the surface in defiance of the depth of tension in the fabric. These patterns, motifs, symbols, seeding stitches have an age to them. Simply put, they have been created over generations and refined and reworked, always showing the Hand of the Knitter, as I like to call it, each family using favourites. In writing our book, The Gansey Knitting Sourcebook, my co-author, Sheila Greenwell, and I spent hours researching the collections held at the Scottish Fisheries Museum. We discovered handwritten notes of the patterns going back generations in the family of Isabella Stewart, knitting them up to find hidden gems long forgotten. Trees, waves, herringbones, and uniquely ‘heapies’, which originate from the Buchan dialect of the Doric language describing the stacks of peat seen drying along the coasts of the north and west of Scotland. The age of some of these Ganseys was incredible. A hundred years old, with beautiful darns and repairs. Cuffs cut off and reknitted in slightly varying shades of blue. When revealed, these hidden gems ignite passion in all the amazing designers I have worked with, from Nike to Connolly England and famously April Crichton at La Fetiche. The Hand of the Knitter shows love and ingenuity in every stitch and repair, keeping someone special safe and warm on the worst of days. The designs can be seen as symbolic, as in the Tree of Life, and also directly representational of the world around the knitter, with references to ropes and rigging, anchors, harbour steps, herringbones, and heapies. Cornish Ganseys, so lyrical in the use of basket weaves and steps, almost create the surface of the sea. The Gansey can tell your story and be used in many different ways, from shoes, gloves, cowls, garments, socks, vests, and the list goes on.
What are the distinct characteristics that make a Gansey a Gansey?
Seamless. Gussets underarm and/or at the neck. False side seams. DIstinct patterns and motifs. 5ply Gansey worsted spun yarn. (Though not always in historical samples... knitters often used what they had to hand!) Tension. (Sometimes as dense as 70/80 sts to 10cms.) Sets of 5 long double-pointed needles in 2.00mm or 2.25mm. Neck straps or saddles.Ganseys are incredibly special. They are knitted seamlessly, traditionally on five long steel double-pointed needles in the round using a 5-ply worsted spun Gansey wool. Knitters created their own patterns, often adding signature stitches that helped define their family or even the village where they originated along the coast of Scotland, England, the Netherlands, etc.Here are some special notes about their construction, which you can follow to make your own!Ganseys have an underarm gusset, which allowed fishermen to move unrestricted in their work. They also had a false side seam knitted in to allow for the increases into the gusset at the armhole and to act as a marker when knitting.The garment would be tight-fitting with short sleeves so that cuffs would not get caught in the nets, hooks, or rigging. Knitting in the round up to half of the underarm gusset, these stitches were put onto a stitch holder and picked up later as part of the sleeve.The front and back of the body were then knitted separately on two needles to the shoulders.The shoulders were either knitted together, grafted together, or even joined using a shoulder strap!Once the front and back parts were joined at the shoulder, stitches were picked up round the armhole, including the gusset stitches from the holder, and the sleeve knitted down to the cuff in the round. This allowed the Gansey cuff to be re-knitted easily by cutting off the cuff, picking up the stitches, and knitting down. Alternatively, the wool could be unraveled from the cuff upwards to allow repair of the lower sleeve when it became too worn.The neck band would then be completed in a variety of different ways, often with a neck gusset added to ensure the Gansey neck did not chafe the wearer.
What is your favorite thing to knit?
I love knitting Gansey motifs and designing new ones!
What makes this book a great addition to a knitting library?
It has all the tools to incorporate Gansey design into your knitting. A dip in and out of book to go back to for years for ideas. Great wee projects to make or adapt to tell your own stories. The latest ideas on the History of Gansey with samples recreated from notes kept by one family from the far North of Scotland and replicated here.
This book is a treasure trove of fascinating information. I see myself returning to it again and again.
Thank you for this beautifully presented piece of knitting history!
Becky
Thanks so so much!
Di and Sheila
If, like me, you've been fully taken in by the history of the Gansey, you may enjoy a visit to Di's website.A copy of The Gansey Knitting Sourcebook is one of the prizes for the Knitmas in July KAL/FAL! You can find them here if you want to order a copy.Happy Knitting!Becky*This page may contain affiliate links. Your purchases help me provide fun interviews, giveaways, and free KALs at no extra cost to you!
The bluebonnet is to Texas what the shamrock is to Ireland, the cherry blossom to Japan, the lily to France, the rose to England and the tulip to Holland.
– Jack MaGuire
I have enough yarn.
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The only difference between an experienced knitter and new knitter is that the experienced knitter makes bigger mistakes faster. Be bold; there are no terrible consequences in knitting.
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Knitting is very conducive to thought. It is nice to knit a while, put down the needles, write a while, then take up the sock again.
– Dorothy Day
My mother told me once that she had her talk with God whenever she started a new sweater: 'Please don't take me in the middle of the sweater.' And as soon as she finished knitting a sweater, and it was blocked and put together, she already had the wool to start the next sweater so that nothing bad would happen.
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Knitting is the saving of life.
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The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.
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It's still magic even if you know how it's done.
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Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.
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What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.
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It always seems impossible until it's done.
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Creativity is intelligence having fun.
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Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, sauté it, whatever. MAKE.
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Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.
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Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either.
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I love the way knitting brings people together.
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All knitting is choreography.
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The only thing better than singing is more singing; the only thing better than knitting is more knitting.
