18/1/14 - Borrowed Alice Starmore’s book, Madeline Weston’s book and the Moray Firth Gansey Project booklet from friends and knitted a tension square. Only 28.5 sts to 4” on size 13s (2.25mm), not 32. Not sure I want to knit on anything smaller than that and the handle of the swatch seems quite firm enough, so will have a think about whether to knit a smaller size than planned while working out a Hebridean-style design.

7/2/14 - Checked tension on a 2.25mm circular and it’s completely different at 31.5 sts to 4”. Near enough the required tension so cast on 136 sts on a straight needle for half the welt using these Channel Island Cast On instructions, couldn’t make sense of the Frangipani ones. The welt may come out larger than it ought to be but at least it won’t be tight on the hips.

1/3/14 - Done about 7”. Progress is slow, only managing 15-20 rows per week, i.e. 1.5-2”.

13/3/14 - Should reach the yoke and underarm gussets in another week. Better start thinking about what sort of gussets to knit and what the design is going to be above the horizontal yoke band.

22/3/14 - Got to where I expected to start the yoke and gussets but it is a couple of inches short, vertical tension must be different in the round. Can’t do another full pattern repeat because it’s 32 rows, may need to have a deeper yoke instead.

6/4/14 - Did the extra 32 rows to avoid over-long gussets, so 4 pattern repeats not 3. Swatched a gusset, will do increases either side of the centre stitch. Now for the yoke.

16/4/14 - Having designed the yoke (Humber stars, trees of life and an anchor), the gussets are now finished and I’m on straight needles for the front and back above the armholes. I’m pretty much ignoring the Frangipani instructions now and going my own way.

26/4/14 - Reached the end of the yoke on one side, other side still to do.

12/5/14 - Finished side 2. Decreased 10 sts on each shoulder to match the row tension of the shoulder straps. Need to swatch to work out which way to join shoulder straps to shoulders.

24/5/14 - Shoulder straps completed and sleeves charted out. Picked up the stitches around the armhole for the first sleeve. Found an error in the Frangipani instructions for making up the flat-knitted version, they’re going to change it in a future version.

12/7/14 - Finished first sleeve, will knit something else for a while before finishing.

8/8/14 - Picked up the stitches and started on the 2nd sleeve.

30/8/14 - Having finished sleeve no.2 with a wider cuff than no.1 and re-knitted cuff no.1 to match, started on the neckband.

1/9/14 - Cast off neckband using “half stretchy bind off” from Cadeau (also used for cuffs), but a little tight so will re-do it using Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off.

2/9/14 - On reflection, decided neck is fine as it is and existing cast off edge looks neater than JSSBO. Darned in ends. Just need to block now.

24/9/14 - Blocked and worn for the first time on a boat - how appropriate.

New techniques:

• Channel Island cast-on
• underarm gussets
• neck-down shoulder straps

This won first prize in its category at the local agricultural show.