Jennyarn

As a Dad, my Dad is great. If I ask him to read a particular book, he does so. Even if it’s not your typical Dad book, if I think he’ll appreciate some aspect of it, I recommend it.

That is how he came to be interested in knitted ganseys. He enjoyed reading Michael Pearson’s Traditional knitting: Aran, Fair Isle, and fisher ganseys which I had borrowed from the library.

He wanted a knitted gansey of his very own. And his birthday was approaching.

I searched high and low for a gansey pattern. Beth Brown-Reinsel’s book Knitting Ganseys sounded the most promising. I waited for it to arrive at the library. No doubt it’s an excellent way to learn. I had to be mindful of time though, not to mention my own abilities. I wanted a straight pattern that I could follow right away. I purchased Alice Starmore’s Fishermen’s Sweaters: 20 Exclusive Knitwear Designs for All Generations and set my hopes on using a pattern from it.

His birthday was more than a week away. Would I be able to pull this off, not even having the yarn figured out much less sourced? If this was to be accomplished, it couldn’t be at small gauge. And I’d have to get the yarn locally.

Although Fisherman’s Sweaters was full of lovely patterns, I could find none that would fit the bill.

Disheartened, I searched again through those books and magazines I already had. It wasn’t logical; it was frantic.

To my amazement, it did exist. Somehow I had not seen it before. And I had been in possession of it all along. There it was, in an Interweave Knits Winter ‘04 magazine. Oh wonder of wonders, this was it!

Old Way Gansey by Ann Budd, from Interweave Knits Winter ‘04.