A gansey based on a Cornish pattern recorded from the Lizard, knit for my old friend Ian (he’s the one standing up). Knitted in Creskeld conifer wool, I got the pattern from (Mary Wright, pp. iv, 1-2, 31). This was the gansey pattern that first inspired Mary Wright to research and collect gansey patterns and traditions, when she was asked to knit a copy of it from an old photograph.
Although it’s basically just a simple lattice pattern, it’s aways been one of my favourites – the contours (or “bumps”) stand out from the yoke, and there’s something naturally pleasing about a yoke which is divided into 3 bands. It’s perfectly proportioned altogether, and almost makes me forget there are such things as cables in the world.
Hi
I have followed your Ganseys.com for quite a while simply because I enjoy watching
your progress with your ganseys and think your blog is fun to read.
However – what has happened? I can only see blogs from 2009 and nothing more
recent, what happened?
Most frustrated and hope all returns to normal. Is it on your end? or mine?
Thanks
Mary Anne
Hi Mary Anne
We’ve had a bit of a glitch and are in the middle of changing servers. Hope to get things up and running again soon.
Margaret
Hi, Gordon.
I have just been reading Mary Wright’s darling treasure of a book. I have anon-knitting question:
Is Lizard pronounced like the reptile or more as though it were a French name? I am guessing the latter but need a little reassurance
I am Canadian by birth and British by ancestry. Living in the US is lovely, but expatriation sometimes means losing bits of one’s mother tongue.
Hi Felicity,
The name is usually pronounced “Lizzud”, to rhyme with wizard, though knowing the Cornish accent it should probably be pronounced like a pirate would say it, “Lizzarrrrrd”, maybe throwing in a “Jim lad” for good measure.
When I looked it up I was hoping it got its name from an attack by a giant lizard such as Godzilla, probably in Elizabethan times and defeated by the English navy under Sir Francis Drake just before he fought the Spanish Armada, but no. Disappointingly it seems to derive from the old Cornish “Lys Ardh” meaning “high court”. History always lets you down.
Mary Wright’s book is splendid, isn’t it?
Thanks for the reply! I’d had wincing second thoughts about asking a silly question. Naxr one will be about gauge or something, I promise.
So you know what the pattern is please. Over how many stitches and rows too
Interesting. This Is different to the Porthleven pattern. some of the Mullion based ‘eastern men’ (men of the Lizard as opposed to the west of Mounts Bay (Marazion/Penzance/Newlyn/ Mousehole etc)) do belong to Porthleven fisherman’s association though I believe) In the days before IPIRBs etc (and indeed the Grylls act( brought about by a local event)) and when a body might of been weeks at sea and communications in the west particularly poor these ganseys would of been particularly important for identification and ensuring a proper return to family and Christian burial in the correct parish rather a hasty clifftop burial.