Inspiration from an Albanach

 Last week I discovered a YouTube channel called Albanach Knitter. Andrew is a gentleman who lives on the island of Arran in Scotland. Apart from the joy of listening to him talk, I have learned new knitting things. I had never heard of heapies or gansey, but now I'm inspired! 

Andrew is writing patterns for gansey motifs for Arran. What if I tried to do the same thing for Mississippi! 

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. This is a gansey sampler.

Gansey uses knits and purls to create a raised pattern. The dots (purl stitches) on this graph will create a 3-D image on the fabric as you knit. I've actually done something like this before, I just didn't know it had a name. I made Emma a pot holder (and later a Christmas stocking) that has an image of her dog Boo using this technique. 

I found an easy way to create graph paper that matches your specific gauge using a spreadsheet, so now I'm excited to start collecting ideas for images for Mississippi squares.

So far my list looks like this:

Biloxi lighthouse
pine cone/tree
live oak
blues/Hwy 61
church
Jackson coliseum
hurricane symbol
catfish
peanuts
Kermit the frog
cows
ballet
an outline of MS
cotton
magnolia
Windsor ruins
sandhill crane
alligator