Di Gilpin - The Gansey Knitting Sourcebook: 150 stitch patterns and 10 projects for gansey knits

Di Gilpin & Sheila Greenwell

www.davidandcharles.com

The Gansey Knitting Sourcebook has been a long time in the making. I first realised how incredible these garments were as a young child on a visit to Whitby in Yorkshire with my dear Aunt Doris, who introduced me to knitting and took me to the Shepherds Purse yarn store aged 12 to choose some wool and to buy a knitting book. I came away clutching Gladys Thompsons Patterns for Guernseys, Jerseys & Arans: Fishermens Sweaters from the British Isles !

I grew up in East Yorkshire and at one time lived in a house beside the harbour in Bridlington. In a flat in the basement was a retired sea captain, his wife, a parrot and their beautiful Bernese mountain dog. I was six at the time and fascinated to listen over a pot of tea to tales from a life lived to the full on the ocean. I would spend hours fishing for crab off the harbour walls, swimming in the oh-so-cold North Sea and practising my knitting. One of the first projects at school was a pair of gloves on double-pointed needles. When I met Sheila, who is the co-author of this book, our love of knitting on a set of 5 double-pointed needles or on long straight needles, with one tucked under the arm, in the Scottish or Northern English way, was a major binding force. Knitting in the round on long double-pointed needles is one of the defining elements in good Gansey knitting!

As lifelong knitters with a special interest in Gansey knitting, we will be taking a journey through the history and special knitting details of these fascinating garments; tension (gauge), stitch counts, patterns, construction details, yarns, colours and motifs. There is a huge story to tell and a lot of history to discover. I worked for many years on the Moray Firth Partnership Gansey Project and this special collection is now at the Scottish Fisheries Museum, where we are currently working on the museums Knitting the Herring project, leading towards establishing a National Gansey Collection for Scotland that will link with collections from England and Cornwall. We have also included the special Eriskay Ganseys from the Western Isles within the collection.

Bringing together and creating a national collection will enable us to have greater understanding about the origin of the craft and about the makers, many of them women, in the fishing villages around our coastline. It will show us variations between communities and families, whilst illuminating the life of the herring girls, proficient Gansey knitters who travelled around the coast, following the shoals of herring, gutting and salting at each harbour as the catch was brought in.

Ganseys are incredibly special. They are knitted seamlessly, traditionally on five long, steel double-pointed needles, in the round using a 5ply worsted-spun Gansey wool, often with false side seams. 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 and more. These special Gansey stitches are all made from the simple knit and purl stitches, or in the dialect of the Dales in Yorkshire hit and missitt (as explained by Mrs Crabtree of Dent in The Old Hand-Knitters of the Dales by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby).

Traditionally Ganseys are constructed in such as way as to allow fishermen unrestricted movement in their work, while also remaining tight fitting with shorter length sleeves to avoid anything getting caught in the nets, hooks and rigging. To facilitate this fit on such hardwearing garments, Ganseys are worked in a very tight gauge with specific features to enhance movement and allow for future repair. These include underarm gussets, a false side seam, shoulders joined - sometimes with a strap or saddle, neck bands often including a neck gusset, and sleeves that are picked up and worked from the shoulder down to the cuff.

In this book Sheila and I hope to explore some of the latest findings in our search for the source of the Gansey, including a study of one familys collection from the north east of Scotland with previously unpublished notes from the knitters going back through the generations. We have also created an incredible archive of the motifs, seeding patterns and fabric designs as a source for knitters to develop their own patterns and to understand the complexity and beauty of these incredible garments, which represent the harmony between the utilitarian and art.

WHY GANSEY?

A Gansey is a fishermans sweater. The name is often linked to Guernsey or Jersey, where there is a history of simple knitted frocks dating back to the fifteenth century. In Gaelic it is known as Geansaidh and in Norwegian Genser, another derivation of the generic Guernsey.

The Gansey is knitted seamlessly by hand with gussets and other features, not made by a machine or sewn together in parts. The Gansey is also patterned, rather than stitched in stocking (stockinette) stitch and has a unique tension (gauge) which makes for a dense and wearable garment.

Like many forms of work clothing, the Gansey is perfectly attuned to its job. Many fishing communities lived in remote areas often aligned with sheep and wool. Wool is the perfect material for use in a cold, wet environment as it keeps the body at a regular temperature and, with the dense nature of the Gansey knitted fabric, it repels water whilst keeping the wearer warm.

The complex patterning and particular tension (gauge) of the Gansey suggests it has a long textile history that has developed over many hundreds of years. It has certain similarities to the damask silk knitting documented by Richard Rutt in his book A History of Handknitting .

Thanks to so-called herring quines (girls and women who helped with the herring catch) such as Mrs Isabella Stewart (see ), we now know families wrote notes to describe and record stitches and patterns, well before any publications of Gansey patterns, although, undoubtedly, hand knitters are curious and would have happily added to their repertoire if they saw something new and interesting. By handling and evaluating the wonderful garments in the collections at the Scottish Fisheries Museum we have been able to further record the complexity of design and construction, which reflects an extremely old knowledge, often overlooked by textile historians. The Gansey is a living document of codes and stitches to be read, and secrets to be unlocked.