Category: Fishwives & Fishermen

I love the textures of the the fishermens sweaters, or ganseys as they are also known. A couple of weeks ago I thought to try one in a simple cowl using my favorite traditional motif from Flamborough gansey. I gave a hint of this direction in a recent post Elemental , and now I have knitted four samples of varying shapes of a neck piece I am aptly naming a ‘neck gansey’ …

Flamborough Head is a beautiful section of the Chalk Coast of British Isles, and I spoke of the colors of chalk, of shore grass, of wet sand, and of stone and storm, all captured  in the language of yarn.

I must say, after knitting four simple variations, the repeats are quickly memorized, and are thoroughly pleasant to work, evoking visions from a bygone era of strong courageous fishermen in their striking traditional ganseys.

In the near future, I would like to augment this design with more traditional fishermen gansey motifs, in a series,  and the pattern will be updated to include the additions (any who purchases pattern will get those updates), but I wanted to get this pattern up and running as soon as possible so that knitters could make them for the holidays.  I’ve augmented the pattern Tall Stack O’ Ganseys, and you can find the pattern on Ravelry  here.

 I hope you try one… and happy holiday knitting!

My mind has wandered down to the chalk coasts of British Isles,  to find the spirit of the sea etched into a landscape assaulted by wind and salt, of the coastal birds, algae stained rocks, crustaceans, seals and shoals of fishes, and dolphins and whales… seeking the blue depths with the promise of life cycling perpetual….to find the masculine and elemental.

It was no surprise that Black Friday found me running into the local yarn shop, searching for colors of wet sand and sea grass and chalky cliffs… and now I’m disappearing into the deep mists of creation for a while, to surface with something sudden & unexpected!