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CHAPTER 1

what is a gansey?

Ganseys are wonderfully varied and thoughtfully constructed sweaters that originated in the fishing villages along the coasts of England, Scotland, and Cornwall in the nineteenth century. Designed as a working garment for fishermen, ganseys were traditionally seamless and knitted in the round with an overall simple square shape and dropped shoulders. Their most distinctive feature was the gusset that eliminated stress in the underarm area, giving the wearer freedom of movement and prolonging the life of the garment. Fishermen's wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters most oft en knit them (although some men knitted them as well), using a highly twisted five-ply dark navy blue yarn, known as "seaman's iron." (This yarn was about the weight of American sport weight and is still available today.) With a typical gauge of 7 to 9 stitches per inch (2.5 cm), the resulting dense fabric was impervious to wind and cold and sharply defined the rich knit/ purl pattern combinations that usually adorned the chest and upper arms. Hard-wearing, warm even when wet, and a comfortable fit (by virtue of underarm gussets and the give of the knitted fabric), ganseys were perfectly suited to the fishermen's lifestyle.

Although the gansey's first appearance cannot be dated precisely, Bishop Richard Rutt notes in A History of Hand Knitting (1987) that the earliest printed reference to a "guernsey frock" occurred in 1832. Ganseys (or guernseys) took their name from the knitted fabric that has been called guernsey or jersey since the sixteenth century, when Queen Elizabeth I set up knitting guilds on the Channel Islands for the production of hosiery. The stockinette stocking fabric gradually became synonymous with the areas in which it was produced — the islands of Guernsey and Jersey. As Rutt notes, "Seaman's guernseys and jerseys were not so called because they came from the Channel Islands, but because their fabric had long been called guernsey or jersey before seamen took to wearing them." Rae Compton, author of The Compete Book of Traditional Guernsey and Jersey Knitting (1985), writes that "throughout the British Isles the fisherman's garment is known in some places as a guernsey, in others as a gansey, and in others it has always been and still is a jersey." The garments have also been known as knit-frocks, fisher shirts, and fisher-ganseys.

The early ganseys were most likely undergarments. Bishop Rutt suggests that as men worked, they would remove their outer clothing, revealing their undergarments, and so knitters took more care in constructing these garments. As patterning crept in and construction techniques became more sophisticated, these undershirts became handsome outershirts, worn with pride. The finest ganseys were worn as Sunday best and to weddings and other important occasions, including the event of being photographed.

As the fishing boats traveled from port to port, the gansey style spread. According to Bishop Rutt, "From the Hebrides clockwise round Scotland, past Northumbria and East Anglia to Cornwall, British seamen's jerseys are essentially the same." Even Holland was influenced by these practical, durable garments, as explained in Henriette van der Klift-Tellegen's Knitting from the Netherlands (1985). The fisherman sweaters first appeared in Holland in the 1860s, when trade routes were reestablished with Britain and other countries after an economic boycott of France earlier in the nineteenth century.

In fact, many people, not just fishermen, wore ganseys. Even the fisher-lassies who followed the boats to clean the fish, and who knitted the sweaters during their off-time, would knit variations for themselves.

Indeed it is fortunate that many old photographs of ganseys still exist. From 1850 to 1860, the photographer Lewis Harding documented the faces and the garments of many of the fishermen of Polperro, Cornwall. Frank M. Sutcliffe, a renowned nineteenth-century photographer, documented the fisher way of life in the area of Whitby in England. Researchers have carefully studied these photographs to record the construction techniques and chart the wide variety of sweater patterning. As Elizabeth Lovick writes in A Gansey Workbook (2009) "Although it is not true that each village had its own designs, certain types of stitch pattern are found in certain areas of the coast. The ways of placing pattern can also be indicative of different parts of the UK."

the yarns

Guernsey yarns developed at the end of the Industrial Revolution and were manufactured as "worsted" yarns, a term that refers to the way in which the fibers are prepared prior to spinning as well as the way in which the yarns are spun. This type of yarn is less common today.

To begin the yarn-making process, first the wool is scoured (washed and fluff-dried) to remove the oily lanolin that occurs naturally in sheep's wool. Wool with lanolin in it does not always dye evenly, so "oiled yarns" are usually not dyed and remain their natural shade. The wool then either goes through the carder (similar to using a brush on your hair) or is combed (just like using a comb on your hair). These processes align the fibers and remove some of the vegetation that may be in the wool; they are essential to creating smooth, consistent yarn. Ultimately, the wool is spun into a single-ply yarn, either perpendicular to the alignment of the fibers (woolen-spun) or parallel to the alignment of the fibers (worsted-spun).

Perhaps you can imagine how fibers drawn into a spinning machine at a perpendicular angle to their alignment fold on themselves. This folding creates air pockets among the fibers, which trap heat and make woolen-spun yarn warm and lofty. Now, think of fibers that are aligned and drawn out in a parallel direction to each other. The result is a very strong, dense worsted-spun yarn.

The manufacture of Guernsey yarns includes more steps. The individual yarns are highly twisted, then five single yarns are plied together in the opposite direction, again in a high twist. It is this final twist, and the number of plies, that makes the yarns so durable and the patterns show up so well, for the light bounces off the yarn at more angles (due to more plies), creating complex highlights, midtones, and shadows.

tools of the trade

The women who knitted the ganseys used "wires," lengths of steel wire whose ends had been ground to points on a stone or doorstep. Even bicycle spokes were used for needles at times. Some used four or more double-pointed needles comparable in size to US 1 and 2 (2.25 and 2.75 mm). To increase knitting speed, many used wooden knitting sticks, sometimes elaborately carved, which were secured to a belt or a skirt waistband or tied with a woven tape. With one needle held stationary in the knitting stick, the weight of the knitting was supported and the knitter's hands were free to work more quickly. (Some production knitters were purportedly clocked at 200 stitches per minute and could knit a gansey in less than a week.)

GANSEY KNITTERS

During the mid-nineteenth century, production knitting offered employment to women whose husbands had gone to sea, leaving them with the family's financial burdens for extended periods. Many women worked through an agent who visited them regularly to pick up the finished goods, pay them for their work, and deliver more yarn. Others organized among themselves, making trips on foot to deliver their ganseys to shops several miles away. The production of hand-knit ganseys appears to have ended in the 1930s, although machine-knitted ganseys are still produced by Le Tricoteur on the Isle of Guernsey (see Sources and Supplies, page 186).

Few knitters still invest their time and talents to create authentic ganseys by hand. Fortunately, well-worn garments that had been lovingly packed away in trunks are now finding their way to museums. These beautifully knitted garments not only present rich history and tradition, but also provide a standard of excellence and source of inspiration for modern knitters.

THE TRADITIONAL GANSEY form and construction

Ganseys are close-fitted, squarish garments with dropped shoulders. The bottom edge of earlier ganseys hung straight but later versions were knitted with ribbing. The neckline traditionally was unshaped, but shaping (or rounding of the neck by binding off and decreasing) appeared on some sweaters.

These sweaters are knitted in the round from the bottom edge up to the armholes and have no seams. After the gussets are knitted to their midpoints, the body is then split in two, and the front and back are worked separately back and forth to the shoulders. The front and back shoulders are then joined, sometimes bridged by an extra piece of fabric. The sleeve stitches are picked up around the armhole and knitted down to the cuff. The gussets are completed as the sleeves are knitted. Stitches for the neck are then picked up and finished in the chosen neckband style.

Within the prescribed parameters of gansey form and construction, many different techniques were used to create one-of-a-kind garments. For example, there are both utilitarian and decorative cast-ons, one using multiple strands of yarn for added strength and another using several strands for embellishment. Welting (garter-stitch bands) at the bottom edge was common in earlier ganseys, but later gave way to ribbing, which yields a snugger fit. The welts were either knitted as a continuous band or split at the sides.

Seam stitches — a column of purls or a decorative pattern — give the sweater the appearance of having been knitted in pieces and sewn together. The seam stitches also serve as markers for the beginning and midpoint of each round. These seams grow out of the bottom ribbing, continue up the side, flow around each side of the underarm gusset, come together again at the sleeve, and continue out the sleeve to the cuff.

Above the welt is the plain area. Plain knitting, in British terminology, refers to stockinette stitch, or an all-knit surface. The length of this section might vary from 1–12" (2.5–30.5 cm), ending at or before the armhole. Plain knitting helps balance the design and can help to evenly arrange repeating pattern motifs.

The initials of the intended wearer were oft en worked in a garter stitch or purl pattern in the lower part of the plain area near one of the seam stitches. At the top of the plain area, a ridge of texture, usually about 1" (2.5 cm) long, is worked in either garter or seed stitch, or a contrasting pattern. I call this the definition ridge because it defines where the patterning begins.

The patterning, richly varied combinations of knit and purl stitches, begins above the definition ridge. Sometimes the pattern incorporates a few simple cables.

The diamond-shaped underarm gusset allows freedom of movement by adding extra fabric to the underarm area. The underarm in any fitted garment is a point of great stress. Expanding that area by knitting in a gusset reduces the stress, thereby increasing the life of the garment.

When half the gusset has been worked, the armhole begins, and the knitting no longer continues in the round. The front stitches are placed on a holder and the back is worked flat (back and forth) to the shoulder.

The shoulders are joined in a variety of ways. Grafting and the knitted bind-off were oft en used traditionally, but the most spectacular technique is the perpendicular shoulder join, in which a shoulder strap is worked from the neck to the armhole along the shoulder line and simultaneously joins the front to the back.

After the body is completed, stitches are picked up around the armhole for the sleeve, which is worked in the round. The gusset is decreased as the sleeve is knitted, shaped to the cuff, and bound off. The amount of patterning on the sleeve varies.

The neck stitches are picked up, knitted to the desired length, and bound off. Neckband styles varied from locale to locale. They included ribbing, turtlenecks with buttons and buttonholes, rolled neckbands, and stockinette-stitch bands that ended in welting. Neckline gussets were sometimes worked within the shoulder strap or on the shoulder line to widen the neck or in the neckband to narrow it to keep out the cold.

getting started and casting on

As explained in the Introduction, the chapters in this book are arranged in the logical sequence of knitting a sample garment:

• casting on

• working the welt or ribbing

• increasing for the body

• knitting the plain area

• adding the initials

• planning and working patterning

• shaping the gusset

• dividing body to work front and back flat

• joining the shoulders

• knitting the sleeves

• finishing the neckline

Each step of traditional gansey construction offers several options. (Knitters then, as now, didn't like to be tied down to a set formula.) In each chapter, I first introduce the principles of a technique, then present directions for knitting that technique on the sampler. I also discuss options and variations of those techniques that you can use for your own designs, as well as adjustments needed for working full-size. (The project instructions in Chapter 12 include additional design-variation explanations.)

Sampler instructions throughout are for a miniature gansey 8" (20.5 cm) long that incorporates a number of traditional techniques:

• the Channel Island Cast-on

• split and overlapped garter welts

• mock seams of two purl stitches

• an initial in the plain area

• a garter-stitch definition ridge

• vertical patterning

• underarm gussets

• an unshaped neckline

• the perpendicular shoulder join

• neck gussets

• a stockinette-stitch neckband that ends in welting

YARN

You may use sport-, DK- or worsted-weight yarn for your gansey sweaters. A smooth solid-colored yarn will ensure that your patterning stands out.

The traditional gansey yarns, produced in commercial spinning mills, were highly twisted five-ply yarns that made the garment's patterning very visible despite the dark navy blue color. One of the original manufacturers of this yarn was Richard Poppleton of Yorkshire, whose label once stated that his yarn had been "used by Guernsey knitters since 1847." Though the label has changed to "Wendy Guernsey yarn," the yarn is still spun in the same mill (see Sources and Supplies, page 186). Knitting with traditional yarns can be a joy and a challenge, although some find it difficult to work with and maintain a gauge of 7 to 9 stitches per inch (2.5 cm).

THE GANSEY CAST-ONS

Ganseys are worked from the bottom up, so the first consideration is which cast-on method to use. The bottom edge of any garment is subject to abrasion and wear, and special cast-ons were devised to prevent the gansey from fraying, thus prolonging its life.

There are three traditional gansey cast-ons. The Knotted Cast-on shown on page 20, is a blend of function and embellishment. The Multi-Strand Cast-on (page 22) is purely utilitarian; strength and durability are its key characteristics. The Channel Island Cast-on page 19) is durable, elastic, and decorative and is the one you'll use for the sampler.

The Channel Island Cast-on is made up of pairs of stitches with a bead of doubled yarn between them. It's lovely with either a welt or ribbing, though it is very subtle in the latter case. The beads along the bottom edge of the garment accentuate, by contrast, the horizontal lines of a garter welt. If you use this cast-on with ribbing, however, take care to center the knit stitches over the bead, or the bead will recede into the fabric along with the purl stitches.

the sampler

YARN

About 4 oz (113.4 g) of worsted-weight wool yarn.

(We used Brown Sheep Nature Spun [100% wool; 224 yds (244 m)/3. oz (100 g)]: Natural.)

NEEDLES

US 5 (3.75 mm) and US 7 (4.5 mm) double-pointed (dpn)

US 7 (4.5 mm) 16" (40.5 cm) circular (cir)

Adjust needle size to achieve approximate gauge.

GAUGE

About 4. to 5 sts per inch (2.5 cm).

Gauge is not critical for the sampler.

NOTIONS

Stitch markers; stitch holders; a tape measure; scrap pieces of a contrasting color of yarn.

CAST ON

Begin by breaking off two 24" (61 cm) pieces of yarn from your ball. These yarns will form the bead at the bottom of the CO. (In a full-size garment, you would use the ends from 3 different balls of yarn.)

Joining your 2 pieces of yarn with 1 end from your ball, make a slipknot with all 3 strands as one. (The yarn from the ball will create the sts on your needle.) The slipknot is very bulky and will not be counted as a st. Once the welts are knitted, you can pull out the slipknot.

CO 34 sts using the Channel Island Cast-on method. This CO makes 2 sts on the needle at a time, so you will work the CO 17 times to create 34 sts. You can use either the Continental or English method.

The sampler instructions continue on page 25.

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Excerpted from "Knitting Ganseys Revised and Updated"
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Copyright © 2018 Beth Brown-Reinsel.
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