Physics and experiments tell me that some of the fancy stitch patterns make a specific weight of wool yarn warmer than plain knitting. The physics does not lie.
What can a mother, that is the wife of a fisherman, do to have more food for her growing sons over the next year? If she wants her fisherman to fish better on colder days, then she makes him the warmest gansey possible. A few extra hours of knitting means more food and income for the family over the next year. She can put in an extra forty hours over the next couple of months and knit her fisherman a sweater that is 10% or 20 % warmer. That sweater is then a "tool" to catch more fish. The over a period of time, that warmer the gansey of the fisherman, the more food and wealth in the house. Knitting a "fancy" gansey was an capital investment in her family's fishing business.
Everyone in the village will see those warm sweaters and know that she put in the extra effort to be a good wife and mother. The village can see that she keeps her fishermen warm so that they can catch more fish for the family.
If you were there and you loved your fisherman, and your growing boys, and you were proud of your role as wife and mother, what would you do? Would you knit the traditional village patterns that were known to be "lucky" for village fishermen, or would you plain knit?
NB, For a couple years, I did forestry research along banks of the Great Lakes and St Laurence. We used an open sailboat to get to our trees. We visited all of our study trees once a month. Any time it close to freezing, any open boat is pretty uncomfortable. I remember one sailing trip in late November, when most of the study team ended up in the hospital for hyperthermia and exposure. So the next morning, it was just my professor and myself launching the sailboat through the skim of ice at the boat ramp. Your see, Dr. Ismay and I had thicker woolens. Ours were not much thicker, but it was enough that it kept us functional. That extra warmth allowed us to do keep working after the cold had incapacitated the others. In fact, that extra bit of warmth had allow us to rescue the others. If we had not had that extra-warm clothing, everyone on the study team would have died. Just another boat lost with all souls on board.
Aaron.
>
> > Did you compare the warmth of your plain knit sweater with the warmth of a
> > traditional style gansey? Your statement below says that a plain knit
> > gansey is warm enough for a recreational boater. I agree. It does not say
> > that a plain knit garment fulfilled the needs of the traditional fisherman
> > desperately trying to feed his family by going out in foul weather. >
> Wow Aaron that was more than a sip of Ale, LOL. No I did not compare a
> traditional patterned sweater with the one I wore, As well you know. I
> did not have one. However I have to show you a picture of an hoogaars > That
> was the boat we sailed on from 1976 to 1988. As I told you before, we had
> no pilot house the sailing, helming, and setting the sails was all done
> from an open cockpit. In good and bad weather. No we did not go out in
> bad weater, but we were often caught in bad weater. Lake Ontario can
> become spooky very fast. I hate fishing and have never fished in my life,
> even less under bad winter conditions. However I have been out in very
> cold weater, cold enough to know what you and I are talking about. I also
> think like a practical woman. Imagine having indeed to look after many
> mouths to feed, I would not go out of my way to knit fancy styled sweaters
> for every day wear. Certainly not when it has to be worn under those bad
> conditions as you just discribed. The sweater for "good" would be fancy,
> but that sweater was used for special occations, and when the fisherman
> died. No bad weater or fishing at those times. I think that the designs
> were made to make something special, that each little isloated inlet, no
> matter what country had their own designs. Just because they were
> Isolated. They did not write there knitting patterns down, they were
> mainly illiterate, and who would have had time to write it all down
> anyway. These patterns were passed on by word of mouth. I think (neither
> one of us will ever know for sure) that it was design, over technical know
> on keeping the body warm under oilslikkers, how to use patterns in sweater
> were created by the knitters. So we better agree to disagree... >
> The Dutch written history about the fisherman sweaters, states that
> originally they were undershirts, and worn under woolen boiled jackets
> (pea jackets). When the men got to hot or the jacket was in the way
> during work, they took them off, working in their knitted undershirts. It
> also states that the patterns were knitted in the middle part on the front
> of the sweater, since plain knitting was much cheaper than the knitting of
> cables and fancy stitches, It took way to much yarn to do that. Now if
> you tell me that the motives in the sweaters have symbolic meanings I
> would instantly agree with you. e.g. the God's eyes, which is a very old
> religious motive. These motives were knitted in to protect the sailor and
> bring him safely home. To me that makes good sense. Many of these
> motives had religious overtones. With so many lives lost at sea under
> terrible conditions, the turning to religion and even much older believes,
> stands to reason. Another explanation, one that even makes good sense
> today, is that men often mistake to front of there sweater for the back.
> So to make designs on the front of the sweater, was a help to get it on
> the right way. A family tree, (Irish) was another motive, That
> symbolized Father and sons, in the sweater. I think your theory is
> wonderful, but it is a twenties century theory, it does not fit in with
> the old fishermen, and the times they lived in.
>
> Naturally that does not take away from the wonderful knitted fisherman
> sweaters. We certainly agree on that one
>
> Els