Quitting Knitting

I really did think about quitting knitting. Each time was brief, but it did cross my mind. Multiple times. Day and night. I asked myself "Perhaps a hobby like underwater welding would be less frustrating?" All because of the Guernsey AKA Gansey. I had started the Guernsey no less than ten times and I was frustrated beyond belief that a highly anticipated project was going absolutely NO WHERE fast. Especially with the rapidly arriving deadline to have the sweater knit to the underarm gussets by the next Nihon Vogue Year 2 class which was scheduled the end of May. I was committed to knit the entire sweater by Continental style (new learnings for me since I don't usually knit that way) as most of the sweater (to the gussets) is knit in the round. I also wanted to try the very traditional Channel Island cast on which provides a durable, double stranded picot like edge. The actual cast on isn't all that complicated although one has to pay attention to the tension and keep 3 strands of yarn from tangling together. Read about it in a book and practiced it Continental method from a video on YouTube. All set. Or so I thought. Transferring the cast on stitches from one size needle to a smaller needle to knit the garter welt was my downfall. Every now and then, one of the nearly 300 stitches would drop off and unravel itself. Yikes. I'm sure someone, somewhere, knows how to recover by using a crochet hook to replicate a cast on stitch in the middle of a Channel Island sequence but self rescue was way beyond my capabilities. I had to start all over again from the very beginning. Multiple times. Finally got past the cast on and knit a few centimeters on the welt as well as initials. Moving right along, yes, Guernsey life was good! Uh oh, my knitting fabric seemed less "dense" than what Arlene and Candace's sweaters were like. And my gauge contrasted sharply from the recommended yarn gauge and what the expert's books advised. I decided to start over as I wanted the sweater to be as much like a traditional Fisherman's sweater as possible. Went from a size 4 (3.5mm) to a size 1 (2.25 mm) needle in order to get a gauge of between 6 and 9 stitches per inch. The next two iterations towards making progress were completely wasted because my cast on was twisted once I joined the stitches in the round. Fatal knitting mistake in which there is no recovery after the initial rounds. Even though I checked and rechecked, I didn't recognize the knitting was twisting until it was too late to save it. It was bunched up on 24 inch long needles and I missed a single twist at the join. All this after investing many hours into going round and round and round on needles as narrow as toothpicks. I abandoned the 24 inch circulars, discarded the Magic Loop method (sincere apologies to fellow Nihon classmate Sarah!) and purchased a 32 inch size one lace needle. Began again. Spent a weekend with other knitters, including fellow Nihon Vogue'rs Naomi and Melinda and in disbelief realized that my sweater was noticeably wider than one that was being knit for a lucky husband. Oh geez - what now? I had erroneously taken the gauge from a swatch that had been done with a size zero needle thus the calculations were completely off. I had too many gauge swatches and had gotten them mixed up. My sweater was several inches wider than it was supposed to be. Hours and hours lost and gone for good. Discouraged but not totally defeated I started again. Careful cast on, right gauge, correct calculations, a single needle and no twists. On my way. Guernsey life is good again.

Memorial Day Honorance

I had been looking forward to a 3 day weekend so that I could attempt to catch up on Nihon Vogue homework (lost cause, more on that later), to move furniture back to their proper location after having our floors refinished, to purchase a new washer and dryer (long overdue) and to wash the crystals on two surprisingly dusty chandeliers. For Memorial Day, I felt it was our duty to pay tribute to those who have died in the name of freedom. Rob, Whimsy Dog and I went to Evergreen Washelli Cemetery north of Seattle to honor fallen hero's. Hundreds of brave souls who fought valiantly in World War I and II, Korea, Vietnam and Gulf Wars have been laid to rest in a beautiful and serene location. Each name represents a loved one and a life story that I can only guess at, speculate or surmise. Several Medal of Honor recipients were profiled - it was so humbling to learn details of their brave acts which led to the ultimate personal sacrifice.
Spec 4 Richard Gene Bauer was from Anchorage, Alaska and perished during the Vietnam conflict. I received a MIA bracelet with his name when I was about 13 years old and I have kept it safe ever since. I didn't have the heart to destroy it after learning of his fate, despite instructions to the contrary. Richard was born June 19, 1950 and was only 19 years old when he died on November 4, 1969 in Khanh Hoa, South Vietnam. I have taken an etching of his name (16W, Row 26) on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC every time I have been to the nation's capital. I never knew him and know nothing about him other than the few details above. For decades, I have thought of him, wonder what his life would have been had he had more years to live it, and thank him, thank him, thank him for his service to the country.

When is a guernsey not a cow?

The 5th project for Nihon Vogue Year 2 is a sweater called a "Guernsey" (British) which is also known as a "Gansey" (Scottish). Having spent many of my childhood summers far from Alaska, in northern Wisconsin, the only guernsey I had ever heard of before is the kind that produces milk! These square shaped, hardy sweaters were developed centuries ago near the British Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey. A guernsey can be a dense knit, and is designed for hard wearing by hard working fishermen. The bottom edge is cast on in double yarn to provide added strength. The garment is knit in the round up to the underarms and then worked flat. Because they are worked in the round, the side seams are eliminated. A mock seam is provided by a single purl stitch on opposite sides of the garment above the welt. The guernsey sweater is distinctive because of the diamond shaped gussets under each arm which lends freedom of movement to the wearer. Each sleeve is worked in the round from the shoulders to the cuff and then finished with a double yarn cast off. This makes it easy for future replacement of worn out sleeves because they can be unknit (rip rip, rip) from the cuff and then re-knit back down anywhere from the upper arm through elbow to the cuff. I don't expect to be fishing quite enough to wear out the sleeves in my sweater! The front and back of the sweater is the same and historically, this fisherman's sweater was knit in 5 ply navy blue wool. Sometimes the initials or the entire first name of the wearer are worked into the garment above the welt. These letters can be a purl or seed stitch combination. A variety of neckband styles for guernsey such as ribbed, rolled, buttoned and folded can be used. There are several traditional stitch patterns for texture such as hearts, zig zags, trees, cables, seed and moss stitch as well as patterns designed by families. Many of the patterns have elements related to the sea such as stars, anchors, starfish, and diamond shapes.
In the last Nihon Vogue class, Jean explained the construction of the guernsey. We first drafted our sweaters in our 1/4 scale design notebooks and then did the full size pattern on metric drafting paper. Determining shoulder slope of either 3 or 4 cm was similar to how we had drawn up the raglan sweater, an earlier project. The guernsey sleeve extends from the shoulder point with elbow and wrist measurements added. A generous amount of ease is added to the sleeves and to the body. Gussets are added next. One half of the gusset will be worked in the round with increases and the upper half will be worked flat with decreases. I am still working out the stitch pattern design that I will use for the upper half of the sweater. My design uses a stockinette stitch for the bottom half, along with a garter welt and a channel island cast on which forms a sturdy but decorative picot edge. Seed stitch initials over 10 rows and possibly a mock turtleneck with buttons and a placket in the ribbing.
There are some excellent resources on knitting these sweaters that have such a strong heritage and compelling history:
Knitting Gansey's by Beth Brown-Reinsel
Cables, Diamonds, Herringbone by Sabine Domnick
Patterns for Guernseys, Jerseys and Arans by Gladys Thompson
Thus far, I am personally familiar with two sources for the 5 ply wool used for traditional guernsey's and highly recommend them both:
British Breeds 5 ply from Two Swans Yarns in Washington state
Yorkshire Mills 5 ply from Frangipani in UK