Brough Bay Gansey Squares Pattern

We'll need more squares than we'll make on the day, so even if you can't come and play with us, Saturday June 13th at Brough Bay, here's the basic pattern for the gansey square, which I adapted from Wool Shed's pattern for the Herring Girl Wrap. The first page of the pattern is available free on Ravelry; the second page, which contains he gansey motif charts are available for purchase only, so I'll encourage you to purchase the pattern to get those charts (Tree of Life, Starfish, diamond, and double diamond and anchor) and to explore gansey patterns specific to the number of stitches in our basic square.

Brough Bay Gansey Square pattern

(Adapted from Herring Girl wrap pattern by Wool Shed available on Ravelry)

Squares can be knit individually or in a column one after the other with a row of purl stitches between each square (this ensures you begin next square on the right side)

Using DK wool in the colours of shingle beach (see photo above) and 4mm needle,

BASIC Square

CO 23 stitches

Rows 1, 2, 3 K1, P1, K1

Rows 4—30 begin and end with K1, P1, K1

Rows 31, 32, 33 repeat the K1, P1, K1 as in the first 3 rows.

For BEGINNERS: Rows 4-30 do plain knitting (Remember to start and end each row with the K1, P1, K1)

Other simple variations include mixing garter stitch and plain knitting or doing half of square in garter and other half in plain knitting.

There are other sources of information for ganseys and patterns including local ones available on line. Any pattern that fits within basic square 26 sts x 33 rows is most welcome. Follow the progress of squares on the Brough Bay blog (www.broughbayassociation.blogspot.com).