Kilbrannan Sound

A few years ago, I had a classic, hardwearing, maritime gansey, featuring a simple allover cable, in a natural fleece shade. I wore this pullover near-continuously, and often, when I wore it, people would make remarks of the “that really suits you,” kind.

This interested me – I liked the gansey too – but I was surprised, perhaps not least because I was often being told – sometimes at the very same time as the “that suits you” comment – that that grey haired women weren’t “supposed” to look good in cream.

Phoooey to any and all ideas of colours we are and aren’t supposed to wear! Surely nothing beats a simple, maritime gansey in a natural fleece shade? Ideas about the colours that do and do not suit us are not objective facts, but contingent opinions, based on individual tastes, perceptions, cultural contexts and other (often rather fixed) received ideas. To my mind, everyone looks their best in a garment that they love and in which they feel easy and comfortable. For me, that’s definitely the case with a natural fleece-shade cabled gansey. And so, for this collection, I’ve designed a gansey in the classic style of my old readymade, and here I am, wearing it.

Designing this pattern was an interesting process. I worked with Mel on its development, and we swatched these familiar cables at different gauges several times until we got the fabric just right. In this case “right” was very much about balancing the yarn’s drape and springy-ness, as well as thinking about the overall proportions of the garment. You’d be surprised at how different those 2×2 ‘O’s can look and feel in different sizes!

I really wanted this to be a kind of “ur” pullover, and with such a design, the details have to be just right: its classic simplicity means that there is nowhere to hide.

I hope that’s what I’ve achieved with this design, which is named Kilbrannan Sound, after the beautiful strait which separates Davaar from the Isle of Arran. The allover cables are integrated into the sleeve and raglan shaping. The ribbing at the neck is turned, for a neat finish.

I love this gansey inordinately, and much like the old readymade which inspired it, it has rapidly become my familiar, go-to, outdoor staple.

I wonder if you can guess what I’m going to show you tomorrow? No spoilers here!

With thanks to Mel, as ever, for superlative swatching and knitting.

The Davaar print and ebook is now available to pre-order!