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Gansey Afghan FO

Details

Pattern:

Gansey Afghan by Lena Skvagerson

Yarn:

Isle of Auskerry – North Ronaldsay Wool. Natural undyed wool from Orkney’s seaweed eating sheep. Aran weight 3ply 160m/100g, 100% wool). 6 balls of Seal Grey and 1 ball of Slate Grey.

Cost:

Pattern: $6 (£5 at time of purchase)

Yarn: £11.90 x 7 balls = £83.30

Total (excluding labour) = £89.30

Timeline:

Started – 1st January 2024

Finished – 28th March 2024

Link to Ravelry Page

Pattern summary

A very simple pattern to follow and very enjoyable to knit. The pattern is easy to modify the size as you can just remove one or more of the pattern repeats.

The pattern is written and charted so depending on your preference it’s easy to follow for all. It’s just cast on, knits, purls and bind off basically.

Modifications

The pattern says 5.5mm needles but I chose to use 6mm needles, as I had less wool than the pattern called for and yet wanted it to be a good size.

I used 1,102m of the aran yarn, just 10g short of 700g skeins. The pattern says around 800g of worsted weight yarn, ~1,450m.

Because I was using a looser gauge and thicker yarn I cast on 150 stitches, rather than 174. The pattern says the finished afghan will be 41” x 50”, mine is 43” x 48”. I could have cast on 144 stitches to get me nearer the pattern proportions, but surface area is about the same.

As I had one ball of the darker colour I used that for the garter sections at both ends and used it to divide after the 5 pattern sections were done. My cast off edge has ended up with more garter rows to use up the extra yarn.

Yarn Summary

I bought the yarn in August 2018 when my husband, dog and I went camping on the Orkney Isles for a week. We didn’t actually make it to North Ronaldsay to see the famous seaweed eating sheep, but there was a craft shop selling the yarn so I bought enough to make a cardigan or jumper. As the yarn is a wee bit scratchy I think, for me, it is better suited as a blanket.

There is quite a lot of guard hair type fibres that pop out of it when you are knitting and as a blanket it may leave some bits on my clothes but that’s okay. I love it and it’s a lovely reminder of our camping trip all those years ago. If you happen to be interested in reading more on that trip we did then here’s a link to my travel blog post about it.

I have not washed it yet…I may wait until it’s dirty seeing as it’s so huge.

Photo Gallery

It’s a very grey day with thick clouds, so apologies for the photo quality.

Close up of the 5 sections

30 comments

    • Hi, I bought it from Castaway Crafts in August 2018. They are on Orkney Mainland. If you have Facebook then search for Castaway Crafts Harris Tweed, they have other yarns for sale there too. I’m sure if you emailed or messaged them you could double check before you go. I also bought a couple of dyed skeins of the Isle of Auskerry yarn from The Workshop and Loft Gallery. Also on the Mainland near St Margaret’s Hope. They are still open and selling yarn and knitwear. I bought North Ronaldsay fibre from the Orkney Creative Hub in Kirkwall too. Enjoy Orkney, we loved it. Lots of islands you can access via causeway, we did a short ferry crossing as passengers to Shapinsay and had delicious cake in The Smithy cafe there and there’s a bird reserve there. Have fun.

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