Gansey Nation

Medieval manuscripts.  Those two words conjure images of cold, drafty monasteries, fantastical illuminations, monks slipping chilled hands up sleeves to warm them, tonsures bent over writing desks.  Countless words written by anonymous hands.  So anonymous that it is impossible to determine the gender of a scribe from their handwriting.  But nunneries and convents needed and used manuscripts, and likely produced them for other establishments as well.  A rare few manuscripts contain the names of scribes, unobtrusively written in the margins or coded in small letters above the text, but there is also physical evidence in skeletons. 

Red Campion

A female skeleton dated to c1000-1200 AD was excavated in Germany during building renovations, and in 2011 researchers analysed her teeth hoping to find evidence of diet.  What they found in the mineralised dental plaque was quite a surprise.  There were tiny blue particles, which upon further investigation were found to be grains of lapis lazuli.  This rare and expensive mineral, originating in Afghanistan, was ground to a powder to make the pigment ultramarine, and was particularly favoured for painting the robes of the Virgin Mary.  During the Renaissance, the cost and quality of ultramarine was often specified in artists’ contracts. The current theory is that this anonymous woman was an illustrator of manuscripts, and the mineral was deposited on her teeth when she licked her brush to draw it into a point. 

Back Garden Orchid

In a way, knitting is much the same, in that you can’t tell the gender of the knitter from the finished article.  Men were skilled knitters in the past, but did they knit ganseys?  Nowadays, it is always assumed that women knit the ganseys.  But many were machine knit, something that isn’t mentioned often.

The gansey just completed is of course completely hand knit.  It’s been a gansey on training wheels; I haven’t knit a gansey on my own for about 30 years. During that time, of course, Gordon perfected his own gansey knitting.  I started work on another gansey a few years ago, when Gordon was there to lend a helping hand and answer questions. He’d given me one of his projects to continue, when I couldn’t find anything to knit during Zoom calls; he’d done the ribbing.  It’s still in progress; the second sleeve is nearly finished. 

Raindrops on Peony

The ‘training wheels’ for this gansey was one of the same pattern which I found in his boxes of finished jumpers.  Another aid – and it was like finding the Holy Grail – were the measurements, stitch counts, and pattern that he’d chosen.  Both the existing gansey and the notes provided helping hands in absentia, but I still managed to overlook details, like when to start the gusset and how many diamonds are on the sleeves.  But these are just details, and this luscious pink gansey needn’t be an exact copy of the exemplar. All in all, I’m quite pleased with it, despite seeing all the little flaws that only the maker would notice.

Two Together

This past week started with a bang – not literally – with a visit from fellow blogger and knitter Sara Wolf (aknitwizard.com).  Sara has been researching for a book, travelling to Scotland regularly to find sheep, yarn, and traditional knitwear, and visiting many of the yarn festivals, small yarn producers, and rare breed flocks.  On the lookout for images, she came to the museum to select photographs of ganseys being worn and worked in, of the herring industry, and portraits, all housed in the Wick Heritage Society’s Johnston Collection.  We sat in front of one of the museum’s computers for an intense and enjoyable session, scrolling through photos of fishermen in ganseys.  I’ve been invited to write up one of Gordon’s patterns, which is both exciting and daunting.

Flowering Grasses

An article about an unheard-of syndrome appeared in a newspaper recently.  While unfortunate and even life-changing for those affected, the absurdity of its name made me laugh out loud.  It could have been invented by Monty Python.  It is called Foreign Accent Syndrome, and is exceptionally rare, with under 100 instances recorded worldwide since 1941.  Most cases are caused by head trauma, stroke, or migraines, which interfere with coordination of speech.  This results in an accent different from that spoken before, which is perceived as ‘foreign’.  It can be devastating to the sufferer when friends and family don’t recognise their voice when they phone.  Sometimes speech therapy is chosen as treatment, other times those affected choose to live with it.  It’s more than just a petty bugbear.

Droplets on Horsetail

And where does the word ‘bugbear’ come from?  The answer was unexpected.  While today it means an annoyance or pet hate, it first appeared in 1580 with the meaning of a source of fear or dread, or an imaginary terror.  It is a compound of ‘bug’ and ‘bear’.  ‘Bug’, in this instance, denotes a supernatural being and is of unknown origin.  Variants of it appear in Celtic languages – bwgan in Welsh, Irish bocán, Scots Gaelic bòcan – all meaning a goblin or bogey.  The OED is silent on the ‘bear’ part.  The meaning had shifted to its modern sense by the late 19^th century.

May Flowers

The gansey has been a bugbear this week, having been set upon by mischievous sprites. After picking up stitches for the second sleeve, I was convinced there were the exact number required.  A recount the next morning confirmed this.  Another tallying later in the day indicated there were too many.  Out it came.  The second attempt had the correct number of stitches according to the notes, but the pattern wouldn’t fit.  Another attempt was made, with the same result. Head-scratching, hair-tearing, and repeated counting of stitches on the first sleeve revealed that the Notes Were Wrong.  A few more stitches were needed to make it match the first sleeve.  Not being keen to pick up stitches a fourth time, the needed stitches were increased in the first pattern row.  This confirms that it is essential to pay more attention and take better notes.

‘A pig’s ear’.  Every now and again – or often, in my case – a well-worn expression comes to my lips, and I wonder about its origin.  The current usage of ‘a pig’s ear’ – to make a total mess of something – is quite recent, dating from 1954, when it appeared in a novel.  Previously, from about 1880, it was Cockney rhyming slang for beer.  And even earlier, in 1847, it appears in North America as the variant ‘in a pig’s eye’ with a totally different meaning: “a derisive retort expressing emphatic disbelief, rejection, or denial.” (Oxford English Dictionary).  The three variants of ‘in a pig’s ear’, or ‘eye’ or ‘arse’ were used interchangeably in both North America and Australia.  It sounds such an old saying that it was a surprise to find it has such recent origins.

Glimpse of gorse on a dreary day

No doubt your weather reports, news bulletins, and Facebook feeds have been inundated with photos and information about aurora.  The media here were awash with images of stunning auroras throughout the country, from Shetland to Land’s End.  That was a pig’s ear occasion chez Reid.  Being dead tired, the skies looking cloudy, and needing to be coherent the next day, I cozied up and slept.  The next night aurora were also forecast, but the heavenly powers did not vouchsafe the northern lights.  Despite staying up well past my bedtime, no glowing skies appeared.  But it wasn’t all bad.  I remembered in mid-afternoon that the windows now open, so it wasn’t necessary to go outside to take point the camera at the skies. 

Flowering Willow

Those windows have a been a boon these past few days.  The week started cold and miserable – mitten-wearing weather – but by the weekend the temperatures were up to the mid 20sº C.  That’s low 70sºF in old money. In the far north, these are summer temperatures.  Hot enough to open the windows to change the air in the house.  Nearly hot enough to wear shorts.  But not quite.

Creels glowing in the evening

The theme of ‘pig’s ear’ extends to the gansey.  Bone-headed errors were made through haste and inattention.  The first was the central diamond on the sleeve.  At nearly the halfway point of one, a check revealed that it was off centre by one stitch.  To save ripping back entire rows, the relevant stitches on the row before the mistake were picked up on a spare needle.  The stitches above were then set free, leaving long strands crossing between the intact sections.  Finally, the diamond was reknit. 

Last Year’s Flowers

A few days later, I scrutinised the cables.  Yes, you guessed it, there was something wrong there too.  Due to miscounting, the previous two cable crossings had been too far apart.  One cable panel at a time, the process of ripping out and reknitting sections was repeated four times around the row.  None of the reknitting is perfect, but the few hours spent were less time-consuming than ripping back 17 rows and reknitting.  Poking and prodding have improved some of the unevenness, and the final wash should sort it out.