Monday, September 11, 2017

Aran Sweaters I Have Loved

I've been knitting and collecting knitting books and patterns for a long time. I started knitting when I was 6, and now I'm 60. The first sweater I made was in fact an aran, from an old Bernat book (the same one that Karen Templer used recently). As I knit the yoke of my own aran design, I've been poring over my book collection and thinking about some of my favourite arans. Here they are, in no particular order.

1. Elizabeth Zimmermann's Fishtrap aran sweater/cardigan. There don't seem to be any really good pics of this anywhere, other than in EZ's Knitter's Almanac (the original edition and the updated one). The best I could do is to take a grainy photo of a page from the latter. It doesn't do justice to the garment.


I think it's the dense twisted stitch texture and the funnel neck that I love.

2. The shawl-collared cardigan from Madeline Weston's Classic British Knits, re-published several decades later as Country Weekend Knits.


You can't see the shawl collar here (if you look at my own designs, you'll see I have a fondness for this style), but you can see the gorgeous cabling. I think I still prefer the earlier edition version, which shows a shorter cardigan hitting around hip length.

3. Alice Starmore's aran pullover from her Fishermen's Sweaters.


This is a very '90s sweater, quite voluminous, and one that would never, ever work on my petite figure, but I adore the intricate textures and the deep collar. Note the the aran I'm designing for myself incorporates a version of the OXO cables you see above.
As an aside, I was fortunate to be able to take an aran class with Alice, and I won't be lending out my copy of Fishermen's Sweaters autographed by its author. It's too precious.
I should also add that it's sad that one rarely sees hardcover knitting books so lavishly produced anymore. I guess technology has changed the publishing business. Newer knitting books don't seem to have the quality photography, glossy paper, and coffee table quality that Alice's original books had. In retrospect, I think the '90s was the heyday of these high-end publications. If you have any '90s original hardcovers, treasure them!