The Gansey Diaries (ep 8)
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We have reached week 8 and it's time for the gusset!
The gansey is at 40cm and it's time to take those seam stitches and create the gusset. In case you missed it, the gusset is a diamond shaped insert, worked under the arms. The widest part sits beneath the arm, with one tip pointing down towards the cuff and the other towards the welt.
Now I need to keep increasing at a steady rate until I reach the maximum stitch count for each gusset.
Then the fun begins: splitting the front and back to work flat rather than in the round. There's something I always watch for if I have cables in my motifs, and I'll share that little tip next week (as surely I'll be at that stage by then!).
I have four seam stitches: a purl, two knit stitches, and a purl. This makes starting the increases straightforward; I increase one stitch on either side of each knit stitch, giving me four new stitches total.
(The different lighting has produced diferent colours in these images, but I assure you it's the same gansey. The one on the left is more accurate!).
There are two Goth Weekends in Whitby each year, but the one coinciding with Halloween is the bigger. It runs this year from 30 October to 1 November. You can read more about it here.
New here? The Gansey Diaries follows the construction of a traditional gansey from the first stitch to the last. You can find earlier posts here.
Shipwrecks, Superstition and the Demeter
The shipwreck in Stoker's book was inspired by a real cargo vessel, the Dmitry, which ran aground at Whitby in October 1885. On 24 October, a storm of great violence hit the north-east coast. The crew of the Mary and Agnes , a companion vessel were taken off by lifeboat amid cheering crowds. The Dmitry, however, managed to steer into the harbour itself before drifting onto a sandbar and being wrecked the following day. The Dmitry's crew also made is safely to shore.
The purpose of the gusset is to increase the range of movement of the gansey — a traditionally tight-fitting work garment. It's less critical in a modern gansey, as these are generally created with more ease than historical ones, but I'm including it as a nod to those who devised this brilliant solution to tight-fitting workwear.
Last Saturday marked the 141st anniversary of that storm. If you're passing through Whitby at twilight over the weekend, you might feel the history in the air.
Last week I mentioned last week that our niece and nephew arrive this week, their visit coinciding with Whitby Goth Weekend and Halloween. As you may know, Whitby features in Bram Stoker's Dracula and that's what this coming weekend really leans into.
Bram Stoker visited Whitby in 1890, five years after the wreck, and spoke with the local coastguard about it. He took that story, changed the name to Demeter, altered the cargo, and turned a maritime incident into horror. In the novel, the Demeter arrives crewless, with a corpse lashed to the helm. Stoker's notebook apparently records an account of a large dog leaping off the grounded ship and running up the 199 church steps into the churchyard.
At twilight, Whitby transforms into a truly dark, magical, gothic wonderland. The Goths, Steampunks, and Halloween ghouls parade through the abbey ruins, the harbour, and the Victorians streets.
Wrinkle is excited. I really hope she doesn't frighten the small people.
Goth Weekend Arrives
Reality: everyone lived. Fiction: the dead captain at the wheel, Dracula as a hound, and a town transformed by supernatural dread. It's myth-making happening in real time, which is precisely the territory I work in when I weigh the competing origin theories of the gansey and sift superstition from fact.
The All About Ganseys booklet went live this week. It goes deeper into the history, superstitions, Herring Girls, and gansey construction, all the maritime threads woven into this series. £9.99 on its own, or bundle with three mini-gansey patterns for £17.99. Get them on my Payhip store.
The Wrinkled Thistle
Heritage Ganseys | Modern Knitting
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