You say Guernsey, I say Gansey ....

Today my husband asked me to knit him a new sweater - he figured that June was the perfect time; I might actually finish for winter. I'm thinking about Alice Starmore's Inishmore since he has wanted an Aran sweater for a long time. I, on the other hand, when I actually knit a sweater, LOVE fishermen's ganseys (guernseys). I am utterly intrigued by the clever construction, and I admire the restrained beauty of their subtle purl-knit patterns. That said, the 7-8 stitch per inch gauge is a deterrent. My last gansey took over two years to complete. It was worth it though.

I especially like the knitted-in gussets. They were my first major knit repair. As I was finishing the section, I realized that the pattern was written to place them partway through a motif.
I ravelled down a stitch at a time to make them symmetrical as they flowed around the gusset. My husband thought I had lost my mind - after all, as he said, how many people will be getting THAT good a look at my underarm! I know it's there, though.


This pattern is from Alice Starmore's first (?) book with Anne Matheson, Knitting from the British Islands. I also have her Fishermen's Sweaters, so perhaps another gansey is in my future. After all, if I knit it, I expect my DH will wear it. Of course, the biggest problem with a gansey isn't the thousands of stitches that go into making it; it is the fact that they're made of incredibly dense knitted fabric designed to keep one warn in the middle of the North Sea. Canada is cold, but I still find few days that are cold enough - and if they are, I'm not thinking about modeling knitwear; I'm thinking about how to avoid going out at all!