Good morning! It’s time for a new Rip it Up (and Start Again) release, and today’s design is called Postcard.
Postcard is a contemporary gansey, that’s worked from the top down.
While the front features a series of highly textured twisted stitch panels, the back is plain-sailing stockinette.
The upper back is worked first, and is shaped with short rows, and, when you reach the armscyes, the fronts are picked up from each back shoulder.
The twisted stitch panels are much easier to work than their intricate appearance might at first suggest.
Each stitch pattern has a rhythm that’s very easy to memorise, and I’ve designed the panels in a very specific way which means that they repeat, all together, over exactly the same number of rows.
Once you get into the swing of the panel knitting, you’ll be surprised how quickly it flies, and, after the underarms, each round features its own relaxing pause, as you knit the stockinette across the back.
Postcard’s style is oversized and comfortable, but that doesn’t mean it’s shapeless. The number of short rows, and the way that they are placed, means that the sweater sits slightly lower at the back, while creating, across the front, a swingy shape that lightly skims the body.
Postcard is a great cold-weather layering garment that’s also incredibly comfortable to wear.
You might notice some similarities between Postcard and Smookie (which is one of my most popular designs of recent years, as well as one of my all-time favourite sweaters). The key difference with Postcard is the gansey’s top-down, one-piece construction, its front-only texture, and the way in which the pattern has been written with the knitter’s experience very much in mind. For various reasons, I think, Postcard is a gansey that’s much easier to knit.
Allright, Kate, enough about the design already, what about that glorious red yarn?
Yes, it’s a red you really can’t ignore, isn’t it? Creating this design was a very exciting experience for me, because I was able to use some yarn that was grown by sheep who are raised just a few miles away from where I live.
Many of you will remember Davaar island from the book which Tom and I produced in 2023. Davaar is one of my all-time favourite projects, not least because it introduced us to beautiful Kintyre, and the place where we would eventually live. Davaar is part of the Kildalloig farm estate, and while we were working on the project I often found myself admiring the farm’s sheep, who I saw grazing by the causeway (indeed, on one occasion, while at the wheel and driving past Kildalloig, my sheep-related distraction almost caused a small collision, which was happily averted by my appalled passengers, Tom, Ivor and Rob)
Down by Kildalloig’s shoreline graze small flocks of characterful North Ronaldsays . . .
. . . and Bluefaced Leicesters (BFLs). . .
. . . while the rougher hills behind the farm provide pasture for the familiar Scottish Blackface.
These sheep graze in the quiet shelter of Campbeltown harbour, in sight of the islands of Davaar, Arran, and Ailsa Craig. They certainly live in a spectacular place, but what becomes of their wool?
Earlier this year, I met up with my neighbour, Emma, at Kildalloig farm, and she told me all about her woolly plans.
Like many farmers, Emma was shocked by how little value there appeared to be in the fine fleeces her sheep produced, and wondered if there was something she could do. For the first time this year, she had decided to send away her North Ronaldsay and BFL fleeces for small-batch woollen spinning.
From her BFL clip, Emma was able to create three dyed colourways of fabulous sportweight (light DK) yarn each of which is a great fit for the maritime gansey colourways that are traditional to this part of Scotland.
There’s a bright red, a deep inky blue, and a cool, silvery grey. When I saw the red I immediately knew it was for me.
I think of this as a “signal” red: there is absolutely nothing quiet about it.
But sometimes – and particularly, I think, in winter, a bright, bold red is just what you want: a red that really lifts the spirits.
A red hat has just the same effect for me as a bright red gansey . . . so of course, when I’d finished knitting Postcard I just had to make myself a matching Heid Hunter as well.
The eagle-eyed among you will have already spotted that I used this same Kildalloig Farm bright red for the contrast pocket linings of Blue in Green.
What can I say? When I see a red I love, I have to knit with it!
If you are gripped by a similar urge to knit with Emma’s yarn, she’s skeined up the whole batch by hand, into lovely 25g and 50g skeins which are now available in her brand new online shop. You’ll need 3x 25g skeins for a Heid Hunter and between 9 and 14 x 50g skeins for a Postcard. And if you are wondering about Emma’s North Ronaldsay yarn (which you’ll also find available in her shop), I just might have a fabulous 1 skein project to make the most of that next week. . . .
Creating designs with Emma’s yarn has been a real delight. There is nothing I love more in my knitting than to celebrate local wool and sheep, and you can’t get much more local to me than this. And as well as processing her fine BFL and North Ronaldsay fleeces into yarn, Emma has created some really fabulous knitter’s project bags which combine her felted Scottish blackface fleeces with Scottish waxed canvas. Hop over to her shop and have a look?
You will understand, I think, why I specifically wanted to use Emma’s wool to knit a gansey: a garment which has played such an important role in the vernacular traditions of Kintyre, connecting the landscape to the sea. There’s definitely something deeply satisfying in using locally grown wool to honour a local maritime design tradition, while at the same time creating something that’s contemporary, wearable, and useful.
I mentioned that this gansey’s name is Postcard: that’s primarily because this sweater is a friendly missive from my place to yours, but it also happens to be the name of Glasgow’s famous indie-record label, upon which the early 1980s singles of Orange Juice were released. You’ll hear more about Postcard Records in this Sunday’s essay.
So, if you would like to knit yourself a Postcard, club members will receive the pattern very shortly. And if you are not yet a club member, remember that you can still sign up (and receive all previously-released designs, as well as those to come) over in the KDD shop.
Sign up for Rip it up (and start again) here *
*please note that, after signing up, there will be a short delay before new club members receive their patterns. Please bear with us! Happy knitting!
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