12.01.2005 | 20:39

Knitting Ganseys

I ordered another book from Amazon.com (when I'm stressed at work, I need comfort food, comfort yarn and comfort books!). This one seems to be a good buy...

It's Knitting Ganseys by Beth Brown-Reinsel and yes, the book is about knitting ganseys (or guernseys).

The book tells the obvious: what ganseys are, where they were knitted, how they are patterned, what is typical for which area etc etc, how to design a gansey, how to knit the underarm gusset... You know, the stuff you can read in every gansey book, so I won't get into details.

What I loved about this book was that you started to practice knitting a gansey right away! No, you did not cast on 300 stitches and get bored on the third row on the ribbing, but instead you would start a small sampler gansey. Then you can practise the techniques and see the patterns forming and... That was a great idea!

When you've finished with the sampler gansey, then you could move on to knitting a full-size sweater or even to designing your own. The book is from 1993, so it seems a bit outdated when it comes to the shapes of the garments - but still, a gansey is a classic that never goes out of style.

How many times did I say "gansey", by the way?

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