I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions, but I’ve got one this year. I will finish this sweater and neck tube jobbie from Norsk Strikkedesign if it’s the last thing I do. I will then pose for photos in it looking mussed and depressed. Or perhaps she’s just exhausted from all that knitting?

I’ve got the book. I’ve got the yarn. I’ve got this much done:

The holdup was the chart. The charts in this book are beautiful to look at but hell on the eyeballs. It took some doing to get someone to blow them up for me in color, but it’s done now and I have no excuse.

Perhaps after I finish that one I can finish this one. Heh. That is some puckery color knitting. Note to self- start over.

I’ve been reading books like a maniac, planning out this gansey for the last couple of weeks. I’ve only followed some of the rules, like making a gusset in the underarm and keeping the patterning in the top half, where it wouldn’t be covered by a fisherman’s waterproof pants and he would need extra warmth from the thick patterns stitches, and cast on (and will be casting off) in doubled wool. Mine’s knitted in Cascade Ecological Wool, a bulky two ply, instead of a fine 5-ply wool. I am knitting it tightly, which is traditional, on size 7 needles. I really like this yarn, and not just because it comes in 250 gram skeins. It seems, so far, like a very basic, strong wool, but the knitted garment is lovely and soft. The minute I’m done with this sweater, I’ve got plans for another in charcoal.

The photo above is telling me I need to rip back and remove that horizontal section beneath the cables and make it less robust. I’m thinking maybe just a row of purls instead of two sections of two purl rows framing 6 rows of double moss stitch. So much for all my planning!

The ribbing at the bottom is 2×2 with the knits done in an undulating twisted stitch from one of the Barbara Walker treasuries, and the chain link cable, used twice in the upper section and which will later be used in the shoulder straps and down the arms, is from her fourth treasury. The most fantastic bit, at least to me, is the skull cable, which I messed around and invented one evening last week. It’s a complicated bugger, since it requires cabling (really just twisting two stitches) on the right as well as wrong sides, if you’re knitting flat, but it’s totally worth it! A couple of friends are testing it from my chart, to make sure I’ve got everything right, before I publish it.

I’m off to grit my teeth and rip away.

Good gansey reading:
Barbara Walker’s A Fourth Treasury of Knitting Patterns (chain link cable)
Gladys Thompson’s Patterns for Guernseys, Jerseys, and Arans (all the history you ever wanted and lovely photos of fishermen in their sweaters)
Alice Starmore’s Fishermen’s Sweaters (great info in the back, including various cast ons, a diagram of a gansey, and shoulder ideas)

Shopping:
Bobbins in the UK has gansey knitting kits, of which the Flamborough is my favorite. I mean, look at that model! The “Let’s see what we have here” at the top of the page is the most charming thing I’ve ever seen. Must buy from them.

*see her whole*

~pattern: Kiri (PDF), a free pattern by Polly Outhwaite of All Tangled Up
~ yarn: 3.5 skeins of KPPPM in unknown colorway (The husband wound the yarn into balls and I forgot to tell him not to pitch the ball bands!)
~ size 9 needle
~ finished size: 74″ wide x 38 ” deep

Thoughts:

This was a pleasure to knit, except for the last inch or so before the edging, which seemed to drag on for freaking ever, but that’s always the case for me and shawls. The pattern is easy to memorize and KPPPM is wonderful yarn. Thank goodness, after seeing Becky do it in her lace shawls, I stuck a lifeline in before starting the edging. I had to rip that back once, after realizing my stitch count was off. That’s the one thing that I don’t like about lace. It takes me a couple of rows to realize if something is off and everything is screwed up. I even managed to drop back a stitch a couple of inches and fix a mistake. You can’t even tell where I did it.

Ths shawl looked like a pot scrubber unblocked, and I was a little worried about how those points would block out, since I’d read about some people having problems with that. I used a size 11 needle, I think, to bind off so that it would be very nice and loose, and the points hold their shape beautifully.

I hope everyone is having lovely holidays!