A great Resource!
I note that these fine, tightly knit fabrics, were knit with minimal wearing ease - hence the stitch pattern had to stretch to allow motion related to work or athletics. This is somewhat different from vertical and horizontal cables used to protect seamen from bruising when they bump against spars (topmen) or rails (fishermen).
I also note that various moss patterns are very good at increasing the warmth of the fabric, while diminishing its ability keep out wind and water. Thus, I think some these garments were either not intended to either be worn "on deck"; or were intended to be worn under other garments, e.g., under an officer's uniform coat. This would be consistent with the minimal wearing ease.
My conclusion is that "Sheringham ganseys" were knit for officers. And the cost and fineness of these ganseys emphasized the authority and importance of the wearer. Standing watch on deck is a cold business. A common seaman had his work to keep him warm. Just standing on the deck, supervising others as they work was a cold, damp business.
Knitting shields, knitting sheaths, and leather knitting belts.
Twenty years of experimenting with knitting sheaths, knitting shields has taught me that they support at least a dozen different knitting techniques. Different techniques allow the production of different fabrics.
I find that leather knitting belts work best with pointed needles, and thus are much superior for knitting lace. Leather knitting belts/pointed needles are the tool kit of choice for lace and Fair Isle.
In contrast, I find that knitting sheaths/shields work much better with blunt, and even flat ended needles. The connection of the knitting sheath to the needle is better, and there is less wear on the knitting sheath, and the needle is less likely break.
Flat ended, spring steel needles allow faster knitting, because motions can be smaller. The right needle tip is slid (by flexing the needle) along the left needle, into the stitch to be knit. (The motion is driven by the large muscles of the upper arm. If I suddenly do a lot of knitting, it is my right deltoids and left bicep that get sore.) The motion of the right hand as it holds the working needle positions the finger carrying the yarn over the working needle's tip. Then a dip of the finger loops yarn over the working needle. I release the pressure on the working needle, and spring action of the needle pops it out of the old stitch. The relaxation of my arm pulls the new stitch onto the right needle, keeping it from being dropped as the needle is flexed /slid into the next stitch on the left needle. The angle between the needles must change by about 20 degrees when purling. When you work out the required needle angle to allow the working needle to slide into the front of the stitch for purling, purling becomes just as fast. I find switching back and forth between knitting and purling to be a bit slower, but still faster than anything I could do with pointed needles.
You may need to keep a crochet hook and a fine pointed needle handy to fix some problems. I also use them for bobbles.
A leather knitting pouch and pointed needles will support very fast knitting, but the gauge will not be weatherproof gansey tight. For additional warmth, tried knitting Fair Isle (e.g., knitting a second yarn into the fabric). This was warmer, but I never got to "weatherproof". When knitting tighter fabric, the fabric got gets stiff before it gets "weatherproof". However, you can build a very warm comfortable fabric for wear in indoors or under an oil skin.)
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2 comments:
Thank you for the acknowledgment and link to my gansey website. The site will continue to evolve and grow.
You are correct in thinking that the Sheringham ganseys were not always outer wear. More often than not they were covered when working. These were longshore fishermen, working alone from open clinker built boats (no decks) of only 16 feet overall length. They were men of modest means, poor even, making a living from crab and whelk fishing in summer; drift net fishing in autumn and sometimes longlining in winter.
They wore a tanned cotton or canvas 'slop' over their ganseys while working and an 'oily slop' over that if the weather dictated, with a sou'wester or a seal skip cap as headgear.
There were no officers of course as it wasn't a disciplined workforce like a navy. They were just humble fishermen and volunteer lifeboatmen working their local patch of the North Sea, launching from the beach. Some did join the crews of sailing drifters in the season (Great Boats) going after herring from bigger ports like Grimsby.
They usually had a few ganseys, some plainer for working and some finer and a bit fancier for best, to be worn ashore and in chapel, or to Salvation Army meetings, weddings, funerals etc.
These fine knit ganseys were not particularly expensive because they were labours of love from wives, mothers, aunts etc or purchased from a lady who knitted (and they were all ladies in Sheringham) at a reasonable price. For example a museum in Norwich purchased a gansey from a well known Sheringham knitter in 1956 at the going rate, just £4.0.0. Not bad for a garment that could see over thirty years of continuous service. The knitters used a sheath of course, which they called a shield and they were so skilled at designing patterns from simple motifs while producing beautiful even fabrics from size 16 needles and 3-ply worsted.
They were finely knit (up to 12 spi), short and close fitting. For ease of movement they had an under arm gusset. When you see these very finely knit ganseys up close (e.g. in Sheringham or Cromer Museums) they are breathtaking and were worn with pride. Of course they can be rather thinner after 30 plus years of wear than when new; sometimes faded to a blue grey but still the quality shines through due to the 3 ply worsted yarn. They were often repaired at neck and cuff; sometimes twice repaired.
There was a time when fleets of square rigged ships fished from Norfolk. Over centuries traditions of fine knitting developed. Every position in the fishing fleet had knit patterns appropriate for needs of those workers. If seamen working in the rigging got hypothermic, the ship was doomed. Canvas is cheap, but not well suited to working in the rigging in wet weather. Gansey knit worsted spun wool is weatherproof, and well suited to protect sailors working in the rigging in cold wet weather. These days, sailors are called out of the rigging in foul weather - that was not possible prior to weather forecasts and steam power. Ships had to sail through all weather, and some work in the rigging was necessary. The captain of a vessel is captain whether the crew is 2 or 200. Such traditions last for centuries. Look at the "bench ends" from St. Nicolas Chapel carved circa 1415 depicting the Norfolk Cod Fishery. These are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. See "Cod" by Mark Kurlansky for a history of cod fishing.
The British Admiralty had Chinese knit goods for British seamen from 1790 to ~1820, and those knitting skills were still common amoung women in the region in 1930s. Chinese local seamen mostly wore quilted silk garments, but still the knitting traditions endured.
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