Designing for my son with shoe size 14,5/ 49,5 a pair of socks based on the gansey of the fishermen from Bunschoten/Spakenburg, a fisherman’s town in the Netherlands.
Fishermen from his fishing village had two ganseys; one for during the week and one for Sundays. The one for during the week was knitted huge, like twice the size wanted. Then the gansey was put into hot water, and rubbed and pounded until it shrank to half. This procedure resulted in a very heavy, and wind- and waterproof sweater.
For Sundays the gansey was knitted with a thinner kind of blue yarn, called ‘sajet’.
The dominant motive were cables with bands in stockinette stitches in between.
More about these sweaters in the book Nederlandse Visserstruien by Henriette van der Klift-Tellegen (Bilt 1983) The book has also been translated in English.
I was knitting these socks while on a tour through beautiful Turkye. How much talking without words (I don’t speak Turkish and the women that knitted, did not speak English..) with the women I met.