Statement of errors (again)

 Since taking Gladys Thompson as my primary teacher some 15 years ago, I have focused on uncrossed stiches. Neglecting crossed stitches in knitting gear for outdoor gear has been  a serious error that I made that leads to other serious errors.

For example, I can knit crossed stitches flat with blunt needles, but I have not figured out how to knit  alternate rows of left over right and right over left in the round with blunt needles. 

There is some evidence that the Knitters of Dent, used crossed stitches in their products. If you have information on this topic, please let me know.

Thus, for now,  I am knitting outdoor gear with very pointy needles.

Ravelry

At one point, my grandfather was a carpenter for the Union Pacific Railroad in Oklahoma. They built whole towns of  buildings using wood and nails. 

Now the quiz:

Which tool in the picture below is the correct tool for driving nails into wood?

Both the hammer and the pliers are applications of  levers

Of course it is the hammer!; because it provides the useful leverage for the job.  It allows professional grade nail driving. 

Which tool below it the correct tool for knitting "gansey" yarn into weatherproof objects?

Shown above are 3mm circular needles and 2 mm DPN with 

a good knitting sheath

The DPN with knitting sheath provides much more leverage putting much less stress on the hands and the circular needles are just too big. And, those big needles leave big needle holes in the fabric; you are never going to get to "weatherproof" leaving such big holes in the fabric.  Use 2mm circs, and there still is too much stress on the hands.

What tools are needed  for the knit objects that  GT calls "ganseys" knit from 2,700 ypp yarns at 12 spi and 20 rpi?

A good knitting sheath with 1.3 mm needles.  It makes a lovely soft, warm, durable fabric that I also use for gloves and socks,  as in this very well tested (worn) sock knit from 6-ply, 1680 ypp wool yarn, knit at 12 spi and 16 rpi:

This is actually a heavier yarn than the old  Patons Beehive,

 thus this is a denser fabric - more like the Dunraven.

You are not going to get there with circular needles!  I know, I tried very hard for years. and years.  My grandfather could not have built cities of wood by pounding in all of those nails with a pair of pliers (although he always carried a pair of pliers in his pocket.)  No, he used the right tool - he used a hammer to drive those nails home.  Likewise, to knit the kind of fabrics that I like, I have to use DPN and a knitting sheath.


Raverly's take on tools;

Some groups have been taken over by populist bullies (e.g., boss cows) that tell us that  3.25 mm needles will produce the same fabrics as 2.4 mm needles. (If we slice that salami, they imply that any fabric can be knit on any sized needle.) Then, they get agrees and loves on such nonsense. Some, or even most, groups on Ravelry have become a popularity contest among folks with limited technical skill, that negates Ravelry's ability to be a clearinghouse of useful textile knowledge and skills. There is more speculation from ignorance than knowledge from actual compartive testing of  tools, materials, and techniques.  People who say this technique is better, are considered to "discriminate" against the folks who use that technique.  

Some will call this "sour grapes" on my part.  Not at all.   I make my rounds of the textile crafts world, and see what suits my needs.  I adopt any tool or technique that is better than what I have.

One thing that I see is that the boss cows at Ravelry spend so much time protecting their turf, and keeping the herd in line  that they have no time to improve their spinning and knitting.

I see the folks who told me ten years ago that it was not possible to hand spin 5-ply -gansey yarn, still spin as they did 10 years ago.  It took me months and months to spin that first kilo of 5-ply gansey yarn.  Since then, I have learned skills and made tools that allow me to hand spin the worsted spun 5-ply yarn for a good gansey or Guernsey in about 12 hours. I did not learn those new skills on Ravelry.  What I heard on Ravelry, was "Cannot be done."

I do not care how experienced spinners spin!

 I do care about what options they offer to beginning spinners.  Beginning spinners need to know that there are ways to spin fast. Beginning spinners need to know that there are ways to spin fine, both woolen and worsted.

Many folks that disparage my knitting sheaths, still knit the way they did when I started using knitting sheaths.

I do not care how anybody knits.  

I do care when experienced knitters make an effort to hide or wrongly  depreciate other knitting techniques. Beginning knitters need to know that there are ways of knitting warmer objects.  Beginning knitters need to know that there are ways to knit more durable objects.

Current tools and skills allow me to knit fabrics that cannot be hand knit without a knitting sheath - not even with a leather knitting belt - which is a wonderfully powerful tool.  The power of a knitting sheath is infinite. It allows me to hand knit fabrics that cannot be reasonably knit with any other knitting technique.  It transforms the impossible into  the possible. Beginning knitters and spinners need to know what is possible, so they can choose their tools, and what skills to learn.

On Ravelry, advanced spinning and knitting techniques are hidden behind what is popular. 

Gansey Nation is proud to knit commercial 1,200 ypp, 5-ply "gansey yarn" on 2.25 mm circular needles at 9 spi and 11 rpi, (99 stitches per inch^2) working half an hour per day 
 ( see http://www.ganseys.com/knitting-ganseys/preparation/stitch-gauges-and-sizing/ ). He does not think that ganseys can be knit "weatherproof''.    This is  the conventional wisdom among folks that never learned to use a knitting sheath, and which specifically includes Bishop Rutt.  It is the doctrine, and cannon, on Ravelry. They believe.  They are a community of Believers.   They are not a comunity of  testers looking for the best way to make textiles.

In contrast, I knit such yarns at 120 and 140 stitches per inch^2 respectively.  I got there by testing, testing, testing! These fabrics are absolutely weatherproof, but Gansey Nation/ Ravelry consider these impossible fabrics.   Impossible - because they never bothered to learn to use a knitting sheath. I agree, using circular needles, such fabrics are not practical to knit.  Gansey Nation considers the very concept of  a weatherproof gansey to be a myth.   This is well accepted at Ravelry.  I see it as simply a failure to learn the required knitting technique. Ravelry is not not a comunity of  testers looking for the best way to make textiles. Rather it is a community of Believers that  proselytize. 

However, if they had some intellectual curiosity, they would have done some testing.  Testing would have told them that the fast way to knit a weatherproof seaman's sweater is to use MacAusland 3-ply (or similar) yarns  ( http://www.macauslandswoollenmills.com/), and long 3 mm DPNs with a knitting sheath. HELL YES!, I knit  weatherproof seaman's sweaters from Patons Classic Wool Yarn!!  At 108 stitches per inch^2 it is as much knitting effort as knitting worsted 5-ply, and it is not as durable, so I would rather put the effort into more durable objects knit from worsted 5-ply.  Still, sometimes I need to prove the concept.

Paton Classic Wool

knit at 9 spi by 12 rpi

Weatherproof! (when oiled)

  And skin soft.

This is a nice fabric to live in when it is cold!.

(No, it cannot be knit with circular needles.) 

The truth is that it is more difficult to knit a weatherproof object from high-twist, worsted spun, 5-ply than from a woolen yarn. Woolen yarn can be a 40 hour path to a seaman's sweater that is weatherproof! It is a lot of work, but it is fast. By the modern knitting terminology, it is not a "gansey" but it is a seaman's sweater that is functional, very functional.  Ravelry has forgotten about functional!   Such a sweater at its best, will not be as warm (for it's weight) or as durable as one knit from high twist worsted yarn.  In the long run (years), a series of the more difficult to knit worsted sweaters takes less wool and less total knitting time than a series of  woolen spun sweaters. It was the dual virtues of great warmth from light weight and durability that made the British seaman's sweater, the Masterpiece of Hand Knitting.

I have never gotten good advice on Ravelry on how to knit really functional objects.  I have never seen anyone else post really good advice on how to knit warm objects.  The standard Ravelry advice is to knit loosely to produce "air space" as an insulator.  Nobody seems to like it when I point out that the right sized air space for warmth is 40 microns - twice the thickness of a Merino staple.  The other side of that 40 micron air space is that the fabric is very durable, by being firmly knit, and not bulky considering its great warmth. Great warmth with minimum bulk and weight is a great attribute in a textile for some uses.

I have never seen good advice on Ravelry on knitting durable objects - notably socks. My 3 principles are; 1) knit to fit (e.g., no stress points), 2) knit firmly, and 3) use worsted spun wool yarns with many fine plies. These points work, but they do not generate many "agree"s on Ravelry, quite the opposite

Many of the "experts" on Ravelry have or had close ties to the modern commercial yarn industry, e.g., they own or work for LYS.  They recommend what is commercially available.  LYS sell what is popular - not what produces great fabrics.  Yarns that produce great fabrics tend to have higher production costs and hence higher price points.  Go down to the designer botiques at a Needless Markup Department Store, and see which of the great fashion designers are using yarns like the yarns you can get at your local yarn store. Last dozen times I looked - zero.  Even the yarns used to make the knit goods at Textures in Santa Monica are not available at LYS.  I would not depend on Ravelry for a understanding of the universe of yarn. When was the last time you saw the 6-strand worsted that I like in the Ravelry database?  When was the last time you saw a 6-strand all wool, 1,680 ypp sock yarn (as above) in the  Ravelry database ? 

 Ravelry is a terrible place to be a beginning spinner or knitter because it tends to hide the paths to excellent textiles. Ravelry is dominated by "pretty textiles". However, "pretty" changes with fashion. Good textiles are both attractive and functional.  Excellent textiles, are very functional, very durable, very attractive, and have a timeless style and beauty that is immune to fashion.  I like excellent textiles. 

Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool

The warmest object that I have ever knit, is from the Old Lions Brand Fisherman's Wool.

Then they moved to production to China, and I tried the new version, and am on record as not liking it.  I owe Lions Brand a deep apology!!

I had swatched the old Fisherman's Wool and settled on US1 needles.  When I tried the new Fisherman's Wool I just went ahead with those US1 needles without swatching it.  That was a big mistake.

Somehow the other day, I ended up knitting the new, produced in China, Fisherman's Wool on US1 (2  mm or AWG 12 needles) and love the fabric for Guernseys.

Gauge in stockinette is just over 9 spi / 11 rpi (close to 100 stitches per square inch).  Today, it is my yarn of choice for knitting sweaters for the temperature range from about  20 F to 45 F.

This has nothing to do with the lanolin in the wool which will washout and be replaced many times in the life of a sweater that does things, and everything to do with the construction, twist, and fiber in the yarn.

My Favorite Yarn (11/2014)

Some of you know that I always seek as much warmth as possible from a minimum amount of wool.  This is a result of too much hiking with heavy backpacks.

I like sport weight yarns, I think they are a nice compromise between patterns with fine detail, and stitches that are large enough to see.  And, sport weight works with my favorite needles.

I tried 10-ply worsted spun sport weight and ended up cabling it so it always seemed harsh.  It was very durable but it never made it past boot sock heels. I still have a ton of it up stairs.

More recently, I have been spinning the Rambouillet from Anna Harvey
( http://www.annagotwool.com/ )  as woolen and semi-worsted weft.  Of course some of that gets plied up as knitting yarn, and I find that I love the semi-worsted as 5-ply sport weight.

It is not as durable as my worsted spun 5-ply, but it is much more elastic, and it has more loft.  After knitting and blocking, I brush up a nap and it is a very skin friendly fabric. The samples have been properly abused, but do not seem to pill -- the extra twist in the fine singles seem to keep the fibers from pulling out and pilling.   With all that twist in it, it is more durable than any mill spun sport weight or worsted weight yarn that I know of - even those yarns made for knitting boot socks with large amounts of nylon them.

And this stuff has luster.  JM has told me that Rambouillet never has luster, but this stuff does. Sometimes it gleams and glints like the sparkly synthetics.

The singles need about 15 tpi, but I have not made up the whorls for that yet, so I just fudge it by using the 18 tpi whorl and a slightly larger effective bobbin diameter, e.g., I wind off frequently, and leave a layer of yarn on the bobbin.

This stuff is about 60% more spinning effort than worsted spun gansey yarn.  Is it worth it?  Not sure yet.  Maybe 3-ply semi-worsted sport weight is good enough?  Or maybe not - not sure the 3,400 ypp singles have enough twist to give the final yarn enough elasticity or whether those singles are fine enough to drop out as much VM.   They are OK for weaving, but knitting is different.

I tend to think the old timers understood things well enough that when they settled on 5,400 ypp singles as a building block of knitting yarns, they had good reasons. I should understand what they knew, before I try to reinvent the wheel.  Perhaps, it really is worth while to just spin the 5,400 ypp singles.

It is a great yarn -- and I have already spun a few miles of the 5.400 ypp semi- worsted single for it.

Fashion

I was recently told that I should go back to school to learn something about fashion.

I understand fashion as a status display.  I know that at it's best, it is a combination of excellence in design, materials, craftsmanship, and - marketing. I understand the delicate balance between the arty desire for something new, and the demands of functionality and wearability. I have been in the sweaty circles of designers pushed to go too far; and, the production of collections that lack wearability.

That is not the kind of stuff that I knit. (I would never admit to sacrificing wearablity for novel design effects!!)

I am more likely to knit something that you would want to wear when sailing, or hiking, or skiing, or while tending ewes that are lambing in a blizzard, or when you are checking on the neighbors during a hurricane, or restoring power after an ice storm, or shoveling the driveway after a snow-storm or gathering wood to keep the wood stove going and the house from freezing..  Oh, you do not do these things? So what!  You are not dead yet.  You may need to do something like them in the future.  In which case, you will need warm fuzzies.  Then, think of me, and knit them.  It is not fashion, it is knitting.  Not all knitting is about fashion.

I was told that the stuff I knit is far too tight to be considered good knitting.  However, I see QEII at Balmoral wearing sweaters knit just as tightly as I knit.  If the Queen can wear it, I can knit it. Scottish castles are cold drafty places. No matter how many heaters and tapestries there are, warm fuzzies are welcome.

A well knit object is one that fits its purpose.  Sometimes the purpose is to show skin, and sometimes the purpose is to keep the skin warm.  The good knitter knits objects that serve their purpose.  I always knit to serve a purpose.  Everything that I knit is designed for a particular range of temperatures and conditions. Mostly, tightly knit 5-ply makes a nice 3-season sweater for local  conditions, and spring/fall wear in the Sierra. ( We closed Buckeye Campground, and it was a little  cool.) Winter in the Sierra wants 6 or 8 ply.  Summer in the Slot wants 10 -ply.  Thus, I choose the sweater to match the conditions.

I started knitting because I wanted warmer woolies.  Anyone that finds fault with that does not understand cold.  She says, "I live in Canada, I understand cold!"  No!  Living in a tent in cold weather or  fishing for cod on a fine April day off of Fortress Louisbourg will give you a whole new understanding of  the value of warm woolies.

lanolin

Many, many modern knitters attribute the warmth of the old knit woolens to lanolin.  However, lanolin oxidizes, and then when it gets wet it has a nasty sheepy smell.  Lanolin also attracts moths.

Thus, modern mills remove lanolin from their yarns (mostly), and modern knitters use this as an excuse for not knitting warm garments.

The truth is that there are 2 aspects of knitting warm garments.  One is knitting tight, and the other is oiled yarn.  Except that there are many ways to get oiled yarn, baby oil works as well as lanolin but baby oil does not smell sheepy or attract moths.

That is, modern knitters use a lack of lanolin as an excuse to knit loosely.  And, they do not substitute other oils for lanolin. The result is that modern hand knit objects are not very warm.

Re: anonymice

Scientists ask questions, and then seek the answers.  Time and budget are always a constraint.  One cannot ask all possible questions, and one cannot seek all possible answers.  Some questions require data that provides a high level confidence, while lower quality data is acceptable for other questions. Technology is even more focused.  Good technology must meet the criteria of: faster, better, & cheaper.

In 1999, I asked the question, "How did the fishermen on the banks stay warm"  The bulk of the answer is that they (or their knitter) used DPN and knitting sheaths to knit substantially weatherproof woolen fabrics.  These fabrics were used in single and multiple layers with woven wool and other woven fabrics.  However, the real magic was in hand knit fabrics with stitch patterns that increased the warmth of the fabric.  The question is as much technology as science.  I understood this by early 2007, see http://gansey.blogspot.com/2007/03/real-ganseys-are-real-warm.html  Work since then is just refining the technology,   as in:

An inexpensive, but very functional knitting sheath

 designed to be tucked into an elastic pant waist

And it is not like we are starting from scratch.  We have a lot of information about ships, climate, fishing, physiology, textile performance, textile industry economics and so forth.  It is more like we have a "blue print" of an industrial machine and the blue print has some holes in it.  We need to go back and reverse engineer the missing parts so everything works together.

I have documented that such fabrics are weatherproof (i.e., will support a pool of water on them for an extended period of time.)  I have worn these garments skiing, sailing, climbing, mountaineering, and working in freezing rain.  Such garments are exceptionally warm even when compared with the best from modern sporting goods companies such as Columbia, Patagonia, Marmot, and LL Bean.  If the skeptic does not believe, then the proper thing to do is say, " I want to test those garments."  Yes, we can make arrangements for that.  We can even set up a little workshop where we knit while sailing. (An advanced skill, as most people get sea sick.  A good part of the skill is to watch the horizon, rather than your knitting.)

I knit such fabrics with DPN and knitting sheaths.  There is no question that the process is technically and ergonomically feasible. This is well documented in the literature.  There is no need to post data on a topic that is well documented. (I had to get up an experience curve to understand the technology, and I collected data as I climbed that curve.  Having data does not make that data new or useful.)

The process is slower than knitting looser fabrics, and thus the fabrics are more expensive.  However, even today, warmer garments tend to be more expensive, and thus tight knitting economically feasible.

I have documented on this blog, fabrics can be easily produced with a knitting sheath and DPN. For example I knit a good gansey in 10 days, and I am a fat old man with palsy.  If the skeptic does not believe that I knit that fast, then we can arrange to sit down together for a knitting session.  The skeptic can touch and feel the produced fabric at the same time.  I will even let the skeptic stare at a pool of water sitting on a swatch of fabric.   The skeptic can put on a gansey, lie on the floor, and I will pour water on the gansey, and she can note that she stays dry.  We can do the knitting workshop in a campground near some very cold river and the skeptic can spend the day in the cold river while wearing the gansey (15 minutes with gansey on/ 15 minutes with gansey off).  (If we pick a good cold river or a bathtub full of ice cubes, that activity will last about 17 minutes.)

Such weatherproof fabrics are difficult to produce in large quantity with SPN or circular needles because these do not provide the required leverage for packing the yarns together. Certainly a gansey or two can be done on circs, but if you have 8 brothers and need to produce 9 ganseys (dad) per year, your wrists will get sore. Again the ergonomics were established in the 1930s, so there is really no need for me to dwell on that.

What is left is technical issues of what kind of needles are best and what shapes of knitting sheaths work for different kinds of knitting. There is less of this in the literature. I mean, we have lots of shapes of knitting sheaths, but we do not know if they were different shapes with the same use or different shapes with different uses.   The truth is different shapes for different uses.   There were at least 11 different knitting techniques that used a knitting sheath.  This is a part of what I talk about in class, and if you want to know more - take the class. I have shared photographs of the knitting sheaths and needles that worked, and have written of ones that did not work.  I have provided enough data that anybody with even a passing interest can try the process without a large investment in time or effort.  Anybody with any interest can knit their own swatches and in 4 hours, be pouring water on their own swatches and timing how long it takes for the water to drain through.  The way to test another knitting technique is to try it!  You do not go looking for peer review articles on Russian Knitting, you sit down and try it, to see if it works for you!

I certainly have notebooks of data that I have not shared.  Every good researcher does. (The only exception that I can think of in an EPA directed Human Health Risk Assessment.) However, I am not going to transcribe the data just because somebody wants to look at it.  If they have a specific question, they can ask the question.  If they just want to fish, I have given enough information that they can knit their own outfit(s) and go fish.  I have a great pile of Shetland to spin.

People come to me saying that they are a researcher, and thus that I should give them my data, but they are not bringing me any data. They are what Al Dring calls, "Sponges".  A researcher can find all of the above references.  If they do not have the library skills to find the references, then they are lying about being a researcher. On the other hand, there are many people out there with good information, and they share it.  I am so grateful to those people.  If the helpful people need help finding a particular source, I will help.

I am perfectly willing to answer honest questions.  However, I do not tolerate dishonest questions.  And, when someone asks a question, I am as likely to show them how to find the answer themselves, as I am to just tell them the answer.  

Venting again

The other thing that cannot be worked out from swatches is venting.

The very tightly knit fabrics produce a garment that is very warm.  If you knit a fabric that is suitable for 30F then as a snug sweater, then it will be too warm at 60F .  However, by providing some ease at the neck, shoulders, cuffs, and hem/welt, there will be a flow of air under the garment and out the neck.  When the body/skin is cooler, the flow is less and the skin warms.   When the skin is warmer, the flow increases  so that the wearer stays comfortable. When the ease is right, the flow of air under the garment is self-regulating, and the wearer stays comfortable over a range of temperatures.  Knit to fit.

We have heard layer, layer, layer for cold weather and have forgotten that there might be other ways of staying comfortable.  For example, layering does not really work in the upper rigging of a sail boat, because where do you stow the clothes you are putting on and taking off? Self -venting sweaters inform us as to how the sailors stayed comfortable without making extra trips down to the deck to change their layers of clothing.

Thus, one can have a ski sweater that is comfortable for skiing the steep chutes at the top of the mountain, and yet, it starts ventilating as one steps into the beer line while everyone else is still taking their layers off.

Likewise, it can be worn below decks, and there is no delay while looking for additional clothing when going on deck. (As in, "All hands on deck to shorten sail")

Looking at Knitting in the Old Way by Gibson-Roberst and Robson, this kind of venting works best with "Boat necklines" but also works with others, particularly including Button-neck closures.  (You will need a much tighter fabric than G-R & R contemplate.)  Turtle necks can actually be made vent by knitting the neck in a thinner yarn or on larger needles to produce a looser fabric that allows more air to pass through it.

With this extra ease, a jersey can be worn under these self venting sweaters.  This stops the venting. Such a layering requires exceptional cold to be comfortable. This combination can make shorts and bare feet comfortable even on rather cool days.   Other sailors stare at me, but what do I care?

The "anonymice" want to chew on the notebooks.

None of this was about science.  It was about technology.  This is the kind of technical development that most companies do, and which they keep private as trade secrets.  Go to your cell phone company, and ask to see the data on how they developed their last model.  Then, see what kind of a reception you get.  I am a nice guy. :  )

Just as the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the proof of the knitting is in the wearing. No pile of numbers can inform you as to just how warm a hand knit garment can be. The only thing that can give you the gut feeling of how warm a hand knit garment can be is to wear an ordinary knit garment in the rain until you are cold, (and I mean the kind of cold that hurts,) then while still in that cold rain, then put on a good tightly knit gansey. In a few minutes, you will understand just how warm hand knit wool can be. Numbers cannot tell you this. However, it is easy to make your own samples to touch and feel.

You can prove the effects with some cheapo metal #1 DPN and some tightly spun gansey yarn or MacAuslands. You whittle/drill a knitting sheath or stick - crude works - directions are in this blog. Total investment less than $10. Videos of the knitting process are in this blog.

Then, you knit some swatches. Do you like the firmer fabric? - that is all that counts.

Early swatches

I started by knitting tiny swatches, from 800 - 1,000 ypp yarns, very tightly on # 1 circs, and blowing air through them.  Yes, they blocked air flow and thus should be warm, but I did not see any practical way to knit such fabrics. Knitting them with circs was too hard on my wrists. The early data was crap because the fabrics were crap. It only told me that tighter was warmer, and that the relationship was not linear.  As I knit tighter and tighter, suddenly the fabric was much warmer.  The curve relating fabric density to warmth has a sharp bend in it.

 I spent months trying various combinations of long DPN to knit tighter fabrics, and mostly just poked holes in my wife's living room furniture. It was months before I figured out how to use a knitting sheath. Then, the fabrics were much better.

Second Generation Swatches

Blowing air through and pouring water on the Second Generation Swatches gave me the courage to knit some sweaters at those gauges and in those patterns.  The interesting thing to come out the second generation was that some stitch patterns were much warmer than other stitch patterns. This caused me to think incorrectly that the cable patterns were somehow connected with additional warmth.  This was clearly one point where I got things wrong.

I knit the first real gansey from the old Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool.  (The production of this yarn has been moved to China, and it is now very different!)  In those days it was 5 finely spun plies, loosely plied to together.  I knit the sweater on gansey needles with a knitting sheath in about 30 days while I was taking time off to rest my wrists from too much computer work.  This is the warmest garment that I have ever knit.  It is good for skiing on cold days and taking naps in the snow.  It was knit in white, worn and tested, then dyed blue to see if blue sweaters were warmer.  They are.  Note that this is an odd yarn.  You are not going to be able to replicate anything like this gansey because this kind of yarn is simply not available.  On the other hand, this is a very important data point for the hand spinner because it tells us that yarn structure is very important in the warmth of the fabric, and that yarn plies can rearrange themselves within the fabric structure to fill in gaps.  Such rearrangement is not possible with more tightly plied yarns.  Thus, there is more than one way to make a very warm fabric.

The second gansey was knit from MacAusland's three ply (Aran weight). It was knit on #3 steel DPN.  This I call my "gardening gansey" and has been worn until it is going thread bare and no longer has as much warmth as it had that first year.  Then it was worn while I pruned my mother's apple orchard in a week of freezing rain and wind.  The only other guys out that week we the power company's emergency linemen repairing the power lines that kept icing up and blowing down.  I still did not understand how special a tightly knit sweater could be.

One cold rainy day, I put a couple of ordinary fisherman's sweaters that we hand purchased in Canada and the two sweaters that I had knit tightly in my backpack and I went went for a long walk.  I would put on one of the commercial sweaters, and in 15 minutes, I was cold, wet, and freezing.  I would put one of my sweaters on, and in 15 minutes, I was warm, dry and comfortable.  This was an Epiphany! Numbers based on swatches did not hint at the warmth of the entire garment.  These inter-garment comparisons have been done over and over, as they are the only way to get a measure of the truth about how warm a particular garment construction is.

Moreover air flow through the fabric is a minor part of the effect.  The critical point is getting the fabric tight enough to block drops of liquid water.  Fabrics that block the movement of liquid water through the fabric are much warmer than fabrics that do not.  This is true even when it is not raining because the body produces a lot of water vapor that tends to condense on the outer surface of  clothing in cold weather.  Convention knit fabrics are so loose that these droplets tend to be redistributed back toward the skin with any motion of the fabric.  Then the droplets wet the skin or under garments (often linen or cotton, which wicks the water against the skin), the water absorbs its heat of vaporization from the skin (cooling the skin), and the water vapor moves outward through the fabric, condenses on the outer surface of the clothing, and is transported back to the skin again.  Thus, the liters of water released by the body each day can transport huge amounts of heat away from the skin because the water recirculates through the clothing system.

Laying a gansey on a table,  pouring a bottle of water on it, and having no water leak through to the table is more dramatic that any notebook full of numbers.  It says, this sweater is different from any sweater you have ever worn.  There are photographs in this blog of sweaters on the patio, with water on them.  Yes, those sweaters are different from anything that you know.  They are weatherproof.  However, seeing that a sweater is weatherproof  still does not convey how warm the garment is.  One problem is that we do not have words for the "warmth of garments" in common English, and most people do not have experience with the technical units (i.e., R value, suits).

It turns out to be very easy to knit stuff that is way too warm for ordinary use. The only people that need gear that warm are professionals - crab fishermen on the Bering Sea, electrical linemen working during an ice storm, guys installing tire chains, and so forth. Most recreational sailors, hikers, skiers, & bikers do not venture out in really bad weather.

This is hand knitting. A dab of hand lotion changes the tension and hence the warmth of the fabric. Different batches of yarn are blended from different kinds of wool and thus generate different insulation values. Nothing is standard. On the other hand the skill of the knitter allows the production of consistently warm objects.

The vagaries of hand knitting are not big deal if you just want to knit a fabric that is warm enough to keep a sailor warm. You simply test your own materials and knitting technique.  If you knit a garment that fits rather snugly, and you knit it tight enough that you can lay the swatch (or the garment) on the floor, pour a bottle of water on it, and 20 minutes later the floor is still dry, then that (swatch) garment is weatherproof and will keep a sailor warm. Another test is to hold a single layer of the fabric right in front of your eyes as you face a bright window. If you cannot see the outline of the window, then that garment is weatherproof and will keep a sailor warm. Two different tests and they both work.