the ANGRY KNITTER: J. Crew Knockoff

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J. Crew Knockoff
Thursday, December 09, 2004

Last year J. Crew decided it missed its rarified roots and went back to selling frog embroidered khakis and $295 tweed blazers. I was bereft. I like J. Crew, even the uber preppie stuff. I mean, I would never buy the patchwork plaid shorts made of twenty differnt plaids, but I thought the jeans and sweaters were nice. But the elevation of their clientele was followed by the elevation of their already high prices. Now I can't even afford to buy a pair of socks from them. Good thing I work from home. I have no need to shop for more than tank tops and overalls.

Christmas time last year they had a really nice aran cable sweater in the holiday catalog. It was creamy white, covered in cables, with a long ribbed collar and rustic wooden toggle buttons. I wanted it sooo bad. But it was expensive. I don't remember exactly how expensive, but it was expensive enough. So I did what I could: I found a pattern and made my own aran sweater. Well, it's not exactly that Aran, it's only got two braided cable panels, but it was the first cable sweater I ever knit, and my first cardigan. The pattern was a supplement from Tahki Yarns in the Holiday 2003 issue of Vogue Knitting. I used Lion Brand Wool Ease Chunky in "Fisherman". I also made some adjustments. The original sweater was hip length. I made mine a little longer. I made the collar longer, too. And I found some cool wooden toggles on eBay that I used instead of the zipper. This was also my first attempt to make the arms shorter, although I didn't know how to do it. Instead of decreasing the number of rows between the arm increases I shortened the length of the upper arm after I finished increasiing. As a result the sleeves have sort of a Popeye look, but oh well. It still fits. Kinda.

posted at 1:13 AM . link .

. (2) comments
2 Comments:

Your sweater is awesome! I really thought it had been purchased when I saw on flickr! Clever people don't buy from J. Crew!

By Anonymous, at 5:57 AM

Haha, thanks. :^)

By Unknown, at 12:57 PM