This summer has been so hard for so many, and here in the Pacific Northwest I'm sending out a lot of grace to all of you.
Long hot days make it easy to forget about warm sweaters and Christmas stockings, highlighting one of knitting's greatest paradoxes: if you want a nice light tee, knit it in the winter. For a cozy warm fishermen's sweater, cast on in the spring and take that big pile of wool to your nearest air-conditioned library or coffee shop!
My summer project is a new Gansey design inspired by Port Townsend, WA. I grew up with my dad taking me to the Wooden Boat Festival there, and I now have a great gansey-knitting relationship with Port Townsend's Bazaar Girls Yarn and Fibre Emporium. I plan to have a draft pattern ready for testing at this year's Wooden Boat Festival, along with my trunk show - check out the Events page for details.
I create historical reproductions of 18th- and 19th-century fishermen's sweaters, faithful copies of family heirloom sweaters, original patterns and knitting kits, and resources for learning and passing on the art of gansey and Aran knitting.
This is an authentic cottage industry, a home-based small-scale manufacturing business drawing on skills handed down for generations. "Beannaigh" is an Irish word (pronounced BAN-nah), meaning to bless, to honor, or to salute. Handknitting was originally a way for poor women and girls to earn the only extra cash they would see for the year; one elderly woman from the Yorkshire Dales said that as a child, doing some extra knitting "kept the wolf from the door". Another from Ireland referred to her knitting needles as the "four crowbars of poverty".
These are powerful stories for me. When they weren't gutting and packing fish, hauling loads of peat for the fire, and growing their only food themselves, these women knitted. They spent endless hours of winter darkness working by the light of a single candle, if they could afford one, or huddled close to the fire if they couldn't. In spite of their hardships, they created incredibly beautiful patterns and designs that in some cases have remained popular for more than 200 years.
I preserve and pass along the stories of these women with my sweaters, knitting patterns, and classes. The village fishing life of the British Isles has largely disappeared in favor of tourism and larger industries, and their traditional handcrafts have become mere hobby. Thanks to a few dedicated researchers many centuries-old sweater patterns have been recorded, along with the stories of the fishing villages in which they originated and the women who knitted them. Books by Michael Pearson, Mary Wright, Gladys Thompson, and others are still in print and can be found at local bookstores and libraries - take a look at them to learn more!
Long hot days make it easy to forget about warm sweaters and Christmas stockings, highlighting one of knitting's greatest paradoxes: if you want a nice light tee, knit it in the winter. For a cozy warm fishermen's sweater, cast on in the spring and take that big pile of wool to your nearest air-conditioned library or coffee shop!
My summer project is a new Gansey design inspired by Port Townsend, WA. I grew up with my dad taking me to the Wooden Boat Festival there, and I now have a great gansey-knitting relationship with Port Townsend's Bazaar Girls Yarn and Fibre Emporium. I plan to have a draft pattern ready for testing at this year's Wooden Boat Festival, along with my trunk show - check out the Events page for details.
I create historical reproductions of 18th- and 19th-century fishermen's sweaters, faithful copies of family heirloom sweaters, original patterns and knitting kits, and resources for learning and passing on the art of gansey and Aran knitting.
This is an authentic cottage industry, a home-based small-scale manufacturing business drawing on skills handed down for generations. "Beannaigh" is an Irish word (pronounced BAN-nah), meaning to bless, to honor, or to salute. Handknitting was originally a way for poor women and girls to earn the only extra cash they would see for the year; one elderly woman from the Yorkshire Dales said that as a child, doing some extra knitting "kept the wolf from the door". Another from Ireland referred to her knitting needles as the "four crowbars of poverty".
These are powerful stories for me. When they weren't gutting and packing fish, hauling loads of peat for the fire, and growing their only food themselves, these women knitted. They spent endless hours of winter darkness working by the light of a single candle, if they could afford one, or huddled close to the fire if they couldn't. In spite of their hardships, they created incredibly beautiful patterns and designs that in some cases have remained popular for more than 200 years.
I preserve and pass along the stories of these women with my sweaters, knitting patterns, and classes. The village fishing life of the British Isles has largely disappeared in favor of tourism and larger industries, and their traditional handcrafts have become mere hobby. Thanks to a few dedicated researchers many centuries-old sweater patterns have been recorded, along with the stories of the fishing villages in which they originated and the women who knitted them. Books by Michael Pearson, Mary Wright, Gladys Thompson, and others are still in print and can be found at local bookstores and libraries - take a look at them to learn more!