About 20 years ago, I started my exploration of how durable, weatherproof wool seaman’s garments could have been expeditiously produced prior to 1840.

Early on, it became clear that the style of knitting had to be very ergonomic so rapid knitting could be sustained for a very long time. 

I had to discard the modern conventional wisdom.  Traditional knitters used knitting sheaths, knitting sticks, and knitting belts.  Few modern knitters use these tools. There were at least 3 classes of “needles” used with these tools, and much of the knowledge of these needles has been lost.  Early on, I discovered the virtues of long “gansey” needles, and later I discovered the virtues of long blunt needles.

The above tools allowed me to knit a bunch of weatherproof, durable sweaters, and great piles of good warm socks (pronounced “swatches”).

Early in the process, I had started spinning my own yarns, which I knit while they still had (Alden Amos’s recipe) spinning oil on them. The oil was washed out during blocking. Then the finished objects were “oiled” with lanolin A recent knitting project reminds me that commercial (not oiled) yarns are not pleasant to knit on gansey needles. I did not mention this issue before, and I am sure people that ran into it think I must be crazy.

Also, for a very long time, my favorite knitting chair was one of our folding deck chairs. They are certainly comfortable for a couple of hours knitting. However, if I have a gansey to knit and a short time to knit it, I use one of our little Ottoman stools. The Ottoman is not as comfortable to just sit on, but, that position allows me to knit longer and faster.  Now, I see that Ottoman forces me into a posture like what I see in old drawings and tapestries depicting knitters.

Some while back, I read an account of professional knitters who were each able to produce a good seaman’s gansey every 3 days. At the time I dismissed the account as impossible. However, today, I could replicate my “Rose Garden” gansey in less than a week. That sweater took me more than a month to knit; it protected me while I did essential work in some terrible storms, and it saved my life when I got caught in a fire. It is a good gansey.

My point in this post is that it is not a single tool or skill that allows very rapid finishing of a gansey or other large knitting project. Expeditiously knitting large objects is the of pulling together several sets of tools, skills and insights that are no longer commonly found among knitters.

For example, I consider long steel needles to be essential to rapidly hand knitting good seaman’s sweaters, but they are so much faster and easier to use with oiled yarn.  On the other hand, I consider yarn hand spun “in the grease” to be of intrinsically low quality. One cannot control grist while spinning in the grease, and accurate twist and grist is essential to high quality yarn.  Fleece should be scoured, dyed, then oiled prior to being carded/combed, and spun.