My Williams Gansey Pack has finally arrived and it's brilliant.
I posted about it a few weeks ago What's a Gansey? and it tells about the recreation of the historic voyage in 1819 where William Smith set off from Blyth in Northumberland and discovered Antarctica. Sadly he's never had recognition for this so the voyage in 2019 will hopefully go some way to changing this. I applied to be a knitter of ganseys for the crews who will take the ship Williams ii to Antarctica and was successful.
There's absolutely everything you need in the pack to make the gansey. Wool, two sets of circular needles, a project book with all the information about the Williams Gansey Project including a written pattern, there's a diagramatic pattern, there's an envelope to post it back to them & even three pound coins to pay for the postage!
The Frangipani gansey wool is beautiful, a really dark navy which seems slightly thicker than 4 ply but finer than double knitting. There's a huge 500gm cone and three 100gm balls.
I'll have to do a test piece first to see what my tension is. It'll mean daytime knitting as I hate knitting dark wool in artificial light. Thankfully it's very light nights for the next month or two so that will help.
There it is sitting in its own box just waiting for me to start. So I'll just nip off now before it gets dark!
You have a very challenging project ahead of you. We can't wait to see the final result. I know it will be wonderful.
ReplyDeleteWinifred, how very exciting! I recently read an article about the 'Gansey Tradition' in 'A Stitch in Time' Heirloom knittting skills.....by Rita Taylor. A simply wonderful knitting book full of interesting info. You are a much better knitter than I to take on such a project. I'm full of admiration for you in this. May it be very enjoyable for you. I've enjoyed your post very much and learned something I didn't know before!
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