Recently a knitting friend of mine died after a mercifully short bout of
cancer, naming me in her will to inherit her spinning wheels and anything
of her books and yarn stash that I wanted. What a gruesome task. I’d
known her for years from our monthly knitting group meetings, workshops
and conferences we attended together. I still can’t believe she’s gone.

However, she left me this stuff to enjoy, read and use, not to pine over
or treasure as a relic so after a week or two of avoiding the pile in my
fiber room, I dug in. This was one of the few books she had that I hadn’t
managed to collect myself and I gobbled it right up in a couple sittings.

It’s not a pattern book exactly though it has some patterns in it. It’s
essentially a compilation of oral histories about the knitting tradition
in the fishing communities of the eastern coast of Britain. Sweaters
called “ganseys” were knit by the women of the communities for their
menfolk in the fishing industry and to sell on commission for a pittance
to dealers as a means of getting some income to stretch out the little
money they had to live on. The sweaters were traditionally made of a 5
ply fine wool in dark, navy blue with knit/purl patterning on them,
usually only from the chest up since the stomach area was covered by
heavy overalls worn to keep the seawater out. They were often knit with
three quarter length sleeves to prevent the saltwater and wool from
irritating and infecting the wrists. And each knitter had a distinctive
pattern she knit or each community had its own set of patterns that
defined it.

There are several books on this subject that talk of much the same thing
in Cornwall. What makes Pearson’s book so special is that he went into
the archives of the historical societies of the small towns and got
photos of the fishermen, the women on the quay knitting and the children
knitting on the sleeves or plain bottoms to help with the family income.
There are old photos of women gutting and packing herring after the
boats have come in and the same women sitting on the empty barrels
waiting for the catch, knitting. Pearson sought out the old people in the
towns and villages to see if they had specimens left from those knitters
and then copiously copied the patterns and took pictures of them. And he
points out that these women were not engaged in some charming folk
activity but were pushing starvation back from the hearth. The kids in
the pictures often have a pinched, hungry look about them.

It’s an interesting book filled with marvelous pictures and inspiring
stories.