Hand Knitted ‘Gansey Style’ Woollen Blanket

Description:

This beautifully hand-knitted blanket reflects the distinctive symbolic patterns of traditional fishermen’s jumpers or ganseys. Each distinct hand-knitted square depicts patterns from a particular port or harbour along the Moray Firth region, from Buckie in the southeast to Helmsdale and finally to Wick in the far north.
The Timespan Knitting Group was formed in 2005 to keep this traditional knitting heritage connected to the sea alive and share these traditions with people of all ages. The group meets weekly at Timespan in Helmsdale, a once-thriving herring fishing port and one of the busiest in Scotland. Salted herring from Helmsdale was exported to the West Indies slave plantation, the Baltic, Ireland, and Europe and traded locally.
The group has created this wonderful artisan blanket, each knitter contributing a square, creating a map of the patterns from the Moray Firth fishing district. The blanket can be displayed as a wall hanging with an accompanying annotated map with the port names.

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