Welcome to The Wrinkled Thistle

"Let’s create something beautiful together!"

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Stay connected: I send a weekly newsletter with progress updates, tips, and behind-the-scenes glimpses. You can also find me on social media.

I'm Audrey. Knitting has been part of my story since childhood, taught by my Mum and Gran, whose hands showed me what careful craft looks like. Today, I knit commissioned ganseys and create teaching materials from my home in the North York Moors.

The Gansey Diaries blog

While I love checking in on social media to keep up with what everyone is up to, I find it's too fast, too instant and too throw-away.

So I've decided to take the time to tell the stories about, and what happens behind the scenes at, The Wrinkled Thistle - the first post is ready for you.

The Gansey Diaries is a new series where I'm documenting the creation of a new gansey, alongside life, the universe and the weather (I'm British, so of course).

The Mini-Gansey Patterns

Three of them — and each is a genuine miniature gansey, not a simplified sampler.

• Anchor and Rope — cables and classic maritime symbolism

• ZigZag and Moss — wave-inspired geometry with moss stitch texture

• Rope and Ladder — rhythmic vertical cabling

Every mini contains the full architecture of a traditional fisherman's sweater: seamless, worked in the round from the bottom up, with underarm gussets, a definition ridge, half-patterning on the body, shoulder saddles and picked-up sleeves. The same techniques as a full-size gansey — at roughly 25g of 4ply and a weekend or two.

Why start with a mini?

Because a full gansey is a serious commitment. Fine yarn, 2.25mm needles, hundreds of hours. A mini-gansey lets you learn the whole construction on a small canvas first — and it's a brilliant stash-buster.

NEW!

All About Ganseys - the booklet

Fifteen pages covering:

• Origins and history — Guernsey, imported silk, or the North Sea herring fleets? The competing theories, weighed honestly.

• The Gansey Knitters — the oral tradition, knitting belts and sheaths, and the commercial knitting networks that gave women independent income.

• The Herring Girls — up to 6,000 women following the shoals from the Western Isles to Lowestoft, gutting and packing by day, knitting by night.

• Myths, examined — did initials really identify drowned fishermen? Did women wear ganseys? Were motifs genuinely regional?

• Superstitions — including two I'm openly sceptical about, and why.

• Design and anatomy — welts, false seams, gussets, definition ridges, shoulder straps and saddles, necks.

• Techniques overview — working in the round, picking up stitches, gusset shaping, grafting, and knitting at gansey gauge.

• Resources and references — the museums, projects, groups and second-hand books worth hunting down.