Comments on: Spin Span Spun

By: Kristen

Kristen — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 23:48:16 +0000

everything looks great! (and another wheel name to thrown into my “someday” I’ll try it wheel list)

I’m excited to see how the greasy fleecy spins up – pictures won’t really be the same as being there, but they’re better then nothing.

(I hope this isn’t being posted twice – there was an error message about halfway through the posting process…)

By: Kristen

Kristen — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 23:45:35 +0000

everything looks great! (and another wheel name to thrown into my “someday” I’ll try it wheel list)

I’m excited to see how the greasy fleecy spins up – pictures won’t really be the same as being there, but they’re better then nothing.

By: Laurie

Laurie — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 20:13:09 +0000

Cinnamon sugar looks SO good. Glad Majacraft is working well. I can only applaud your wheel glut, and yarn creation…then I feel less gluttonous. *sigh*

By: Marcia

Marcia — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 05:11:57 +0000

I meant to ask…what is the “curing” time before you ply? I took a chance today with some stuff that I needed to clear out of the way: one bobbin was pretty stale, the other was much more recently spun, including a frenzy of spinning over the past two days. I’m holding my breath!

By: Marcia

Marcia — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 05:14:43 +0000

You got me wondering, so I went and grabbed Beth Brown-Reinsel’s book on ganseys. Lots of differences…the gusset, as mentioned above. Plain areas, such as at the end of the sleeve and towards the bottom of the body. Knitted in the round. Often a split welt at the bottom. Several ways to join shoulders, but she doesn’t mention a saddle. Dropped shoulders. The traditional yarn was a “highly twisted 5-ply dark navy blue yarn, known as ‘seaman’s iron’” or about a sport weight. Now I’ll have to go look up Arans!

By: Kim

Kim — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 00:11:42 +0000

Congratulations on the new wheel! Suzy is a wonderful spinner

I have always thought the difference between a gansy and an Aran had to do with the weight of the yarn. Aran being a heavier weight yarn, but I could be wrong ;-0

By: Sue

Sue — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 20:55:12 +0000

I’ve always thought of the difference between ganseys and arans being one of construction. To me, ganseys have underarm gussets and shoulder straps, and freqently a “horizontal” feel in the patterning (either from actual horizontal bands of knit/purl motifs, or from a break point between a plain lower portion and a patterned upper part). Arans have more of a “vertical” feeling, with panels of various cables, which cover the whole surface. I think of knit/purl patterns more than cables when I think of a gansey.

That’s just how I think of them, and I’m sure many would disagree. There’s probably a lot of overlap!