I am looking for a book or single patterns for TOP DOWN GUERNSEY

It is my understanding that the original gansey is a bottom up sweater with distinguishing features such as knit/purl patterning in the yoke area of the sweater, and gussets under the sleeves. I don't see why you couldn't convert a traditional pattern to top down. The biggest shaping issue would be the under arm gussets.

I agree with KT.
You could either
- convert a traditional bottom-up Guernsey/Gansey pattern to top-down, picking appropriate cast-on and bind-off, and casting on extra stitches for gussets when you get to underarm,
- or you could add gansey-style decorations from a stitch library to a top-down pattern,
- OR you could design one yourself from scratch.

I don't think I've seen any published patterns like what you're looking for, but it's not knitting that's impossible to do.

I'm in Poland right now, but in UK I have a tremendous little book about traditional knitting, with pictures taken in the 1890s of Guernsey fishermen wearing their 'shirts' as they were called. The shirt was worn next to the skin and the men rarely took them off. The wool was evenly spun and coloured navy blue.

The essence of the garment is that it was created without sewing up, knitted by folk who could not count beyond a score [20] They used as many as 20 double-pointed bone needles each with 20 stitches and kntted in the round bottom up. The sleeve gusset starts about 6 inches above the welt. At the divide for the armholes going into knitting back and forth on front and back separately, and a number of the pictures show a complete change of pattern at this point.

The neck line was, what we would now call slash neck, and the shoulder seams are formed by knitting the two pieces together on the cast-off [bind off] The sleeves are then knitted downwards from picked up stitches.

The design could easily be revised to knit downwards, but to absolutely no advantage.

The Ganseys you can buy on Guernsey are now machine knitted with HAND FINISHED GANSEYS emblazoned on the factory. I didn't see any sheep on the island when we were there, and I certainly didn't see any Guernsey wool for sale.

As soon as I get back to UK I shall post the ISBN number of the book.

Best wishes, John

I have two copies of the book that John mentions. Mine are reproductions published by Dover Press. The title is "Patterns for Guernseys, Jerseys and Arans" by Gladys Thompson. I've used the basic pattern, bottom up, several times. As a matter of fact, my Masters level III sweater was based on the basic pattern. I'd be glad to send you one copy if you will send me your mailing address

Fisherman Knitting

by Michael Harvey & Rae Compton.
Shire Album No.31 published by:
Shire Publications Ltd,
Cromwell House,
Church St,
Princes Risborough,
Aylesbury,
Bucks,
HP17 9AJ,
UK

ISBN 0 85263 421 8