PENELOPE HEMINGWAY
Finally, here it is. River Ganseys – Striking t’loop, Swaving, and other Yorkshire Curiosities Revived From the Archives is out on Ravelry. Your actual hard copies will hopefully be ready for Rhinebeck (The New York State Sheep & Wool Festival). The rather wonderful Schoolhouse Press will be stocking the book. That makes me happy on […]
Last month we were lucky enough to see the Grand Depart of the Tour de France, in Yorkshire. Hardly been off our bikes since. And the month has been more Tour de France than Tour de Fleece, round here. I forgot all about this pattern, til today when, cycling along, I remembered I’ll […]
Knitting the Old Dales Way. How To Use a Knitting Stick or Shetland Knitting Belt: workshop A rare chance to learn this brilliant, simple but obscure method of knitting. Let’s keep this old Yorkshire craft alive! For its opening weekend, the Yorkshire Museum of Farming is holding a Country Crafts event, and I’ll be doing […]
“If the youngest daughter in a family is married first, the eldest had better unravel one of her garters; knitting the same, mixed with other wool, into something a man can wear. This she must present to the one she has special regard for, and it will most likely incline his heart to her.” [Yorkshire […]
22nd Dec. 1801 Tuesday 22nd Still Thaw. I washed my head. Wm [William] & I went to Rydale for letters, the road was covered with dirty snow, rough & rather slippery… As we came up the White Moss we met an old man, who I saw was a beggar by his two bags hanging over […]
“Guernsey…. A thick, knitted, closely-fitting vest or shirt, usually made of blue wool, worn by seamen. 1851.” The Shorter Oxford Dictionary Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in traditional knitting. Ganseys or guernseys are being knitted, worn and enjoyed, by a whole new generation. Ganseys are jumpers knitted from 5 ply, unoiled, worsted-spun […]
“Mary Murray, an Irishwoman, aged 30, was indicted for stealing a woollen frock, and other articles, as books, shoes, a comb, and various small groceries, the property of Jeremiah Long, mariner. Jeremiah Long deposes that he lodges at Mr. Metcher’s, in Westgate-street; on Saturday night the 26th of June he locked up his room and […]
Have had a knitting filled week or two; from documenting the 1846 Dales glove up in Grasmere, to figuring out how to knit an 1860’s child’s stripey sock, to putting the finishing touches to our inland waterways ganseys and Yorkshire Dales knitting projects for the book. I’m even dreaming in knitting at the moment. That’s […]
My first ever piece of traditional knitting wasn’t a gansey. It was ‘Miss Flora Campbell’s cardigan’, a 1930 Fair Isle cardigan, the pattern worked out in the classic (soon to be re-published!) ‘Traditional Knitting’, by Michael Pearson. Pearson’s book came out in 1984, and I must have clocked it within weeks of it landing in […]
One woman didn’t stand for the chauvinistic Anonymous’s poem, and gave him a reply with both barrels blazing. Interesting to note, she was not even a knitter, herself. I hope she took up the needles afterwards. I had a quick look on the 1851 Census for a Katharine/Catherine or Kitty West. No real likely candidates […]
PENELOPE HEMINGWAY 