What do these things have in common: the oldest surviving knitting needles in England; the first written evidence of a professional knitter; the earliest known knitting sheath? They were all found in Yorkshire. Yorkshire has been described as the “centre of the wool universe” for the eighteenth and nineteenth century. To know about the history of Yorkshire knitting is to know about the history of knitting.

After a painstaking search through the archives in search of original documents and images, the “Knitting Genealogist” Penelope Lister Hemingway brings you the fascinating stories behind that iconic nineteenth-century knitted garment, the gansey (or guernsey) sweater. Hemingway shows us that much of what we thought we knew about these sweaters is actually myth. Luckily, the real stories are even more interesting.

Paperback published in October 2015 by Cooperative Press