Osborn Fiber Studio

I have a sweater finish to share with you! This is the Big Easy Gansey from Knitting Ganseys by Beth Brown-Reinsel.

I knit it in Donegal Yarns’ “Irish Heather” 3-ply yarn, an aran weight, in colour 8093. It took almost exactly 75% of the kilo that I bought.

This sweater was just the right amount of interesting for me. It’s been a long time since I’ve knitted a sweater with surface texture; anymore, I find cabling and lace too fiddly. But this pattern was just easy enough that I didn’t have to follow the pattern on every row, and I didn’t get annoyed at the one cable. That one cable is such a great framing device for the lovely patterning inside.

The construction of these traditional Gansey sweaters is also really cool. You knit in the round to the armpits, adding this gusset to the body shaping before splitting for the sleeves. The front and back are finished separately, joined together, then you pick up and knit the sleeves down, finishing the gusset shaping. The idea is to allow for a lot of freedom of movement in the sleeves, without adding a lot of bulk to the body.

I did run into a major hiccup with the modifications I made to this sweater.

The original has this interesting collar situation where there’s a really wide scoop neck with ribbing that you then pick up from to make a sort of rolled collar. Cool as it is, I didn’t want it for myself. I just wanted the ordinary round collar you see above. But when I got to the top of the front, I didn’t feel like doing any figuring-out at that point, so I just knit the wide collar shaping as written, saying I would “figure something out later.”

This was extremely silly.

After the sleeves were done, I went in to fill in that wide collar with more fabric, and I couldn’t figure out a way to do this very tidily. The above looks… okay. You can see the line where I picked up from the decreases, and the short rows may not have been quite even, adding a little hunch.

I could have lived with that error, had I not compounded it with another. When splitting for a neck, I dislike working both sides at the same time. It just annoys me. So I often do them separately. However, I discovered why it’s a good idea to work both sides at the same time: I accidentally made one side of the back neck fully eight rows (a cable repeat) longer than the other side.

This wouldn’t have been a big deal had I not already knit the sleeves, which as I mentioned, are picked up and knit down, fully integrated with the armhole gussets. There would be no full re-do of the neckline without re-doing the sleeves. Or would there?

What I ended up doing was cutting the sleeves off, right at the pick up row. I ripped back the neckline entirely and did it properly, with maths and everything. Then I picked up for the sleeves again, and grafted them back on, including grafting the gusset back together. My attempt to graft in pattern was not perfect, but I don’t think it’s really noticeable.

So I lost the ease of construction integral to the appeal of the pattern. So what? I got a beautiful sweater in the end, and I’m extremely pleased with it. I did also modify the cuffs, as you may notice, for 2×2 rib rather than garter stitch. Sleeves, for me, are all about doing the dishes.

Knitting a Gansey sweater was on my bucket list. I love the work Beth Brown-Reinsel did in documenting the history of them, debunking some myths and uncovering cool facts. I love the practicality that went into the knitting conventions of the style. I like that a firm fabric is called for, and that it’s expected for you to think about the yarn you use. But most of all, I like knitting a little piece of history – it feels like my making hands are touching the past, knitting beside the memories of knitters long gone.

I’m finding it extremely wearable on these cold winter days, over a long sleeved shirt, with two layers of pants and wool socks. Good for a snuggle with my doggo, determined to photobomb this shoot. Stay cozy, my friends!