Eighties Sweaters Are Back: I.5. Aran

While some other Irish and Scottish communities developed distinctive "gansey" patterns (Eriskay's mix of cables and lace is mentioned in most of the historical studies), on the three islands known collectively as Aran knitters developed quite a different type of sweater. 

What makes a sweater "Aran"? 

a. Thick wool yarn. While some traditional Aran sweaters were knitted of lightweight yarn, they were worn as overcoats not undershirts, and there seems to have been no motivation to make them "fine" or form-fitting. Often Aran knitters used wool as thick as the blanket-weight craft yarn found in dime stores today. 

b. Big, bold, elaborate cables. Combinations of cable patterns in one sweater or jacket usually formed flattering vertical lines, but the garment itself added considerable bulk to the figure. And, while some cable patterns can be repeated all over a knitted piece, and a single cable pattern down the center or along the side of a knitted piece can be very effective, the most typy Aran sweaters that have been preserved in museums always show a carefully planned selection of different patterns--usually the widest pattern down the middle, and narrower patterns repeated on either side. 

Though it features a particularly elaborate, classic Aran cable on the back, the jacket shown above would not be considered a true Aran style. 

Though also of American origin, this mix of cables is more typically "Aran."

For me Aran styles knit up slowly but sell fast, and when I think of the Aran designs I've knitted, vivid memories come to mind. Aran sweaters are associated with tough men so they're the Eighties style American men are most likely to consider masculine enough to wear. I knitted a copy of one of Alice Starmore's designs (in the early collection shown below) for my "boy friend." It looked good on him; a lot of things did. Before that relationship reached its natural end I knitted a variation on one of Shelagh Hollingworth's designs to display in a store window, advertising a shipment of natural wool yarn. The display wasn't well timed, so next autumn, when I went to Stitches Fair, I still had the sweater. The friend who volunteered to drive didn't have anything else to do in Valley Forge so I said, "I'll buy you a ticket if you'll model one of my knits." It looked good on him; a lot of things did. Karen Bright, the token extrovert at Knitter's, screeched "Your husband?" and both of us chorused, "Oh no, just a car pool buddy!" The next time we went to Stitches Fair, he wore a sweater I'd knitted just for him, and he was my husband. 

Some say there's a Sweater Hex: If you knit a sweater for someone you're dating, you will break up. Designer Kristin Nicholas, who married one of her models, once claimed to be an exception. I think she and I have found a subsection of the rule. A hand-knitted sweater is too valuable to give as a gift to someone who's not given you a diamond. It can feel like Pressure, like a wad of Neediness. A hand-knitted sweater that you've made for a public display and allowed someone to model carries less pressure...so, results may depend on the experience the person has wearing the sweater. 

c. Irish wool. The sheep did not produce especially soft wool, but traditionally the prickliness was minimized by using undyed wool, nearly always from white sheep. Unlike the heavy natural wools favored on Iceland, however, Aran sweaters were made of firm, rather tightly spun wool. 

d. Scandinavian shaping, with armholes worked straight up and down, seems to have been more popular than gansey shaping, with underarm gussets. Aran was also the home of the saddle-shouldered sweater, where the front and back pieces are joined to a narrow strap of knitting that extends up from the center of the sleeve. However, by 1950 Aran knitters and their imitators were adapting Aran cable stitches to every possible shape. 

Pattern books to look for: 

In addition to Gladys Thompson's Patterns for Guernseys, Jerseys, and Arans and Michael Pearson's Traditional Knitting, discussed in previous sections...

1. Shelagh Hollingworth's Complete Book of Traditional Aran Knitting represents a transition point in the publication of knitting books. Partly because Aran patterns can be trickier to design, publishers recognized that many, perhaps even most, people who bought this knitting book would want step-by-step instructions, rather than just patterns they could plug into the sweater patterns they'd been using since grade three. Hollingworth uses most of her space describing traditional sweaters and stitch patterns, then relents and offers beginners a selection of traditional and updated sweater patterns, plus other types of knitting patterns, they can follow right away as soon as they've found the yarn and needles on which they get the right gauge. 

2. Alice Starmore's Knitting from the British Islands was the collection that was actually available in the Eighties. As shown, it's a mix of contemporary styles with traditional stitch patterns, but since traditional sweaters were fashionable in the Eighties, some of the sweaters in this book look like museum pieces. 

Later AS published other collections in which she played with the ideas of Aran and gansey knitting... None of these books was printed in the Eighties, and all contain original rather than traditional designs. However, because the Aran sweater style is unmistakable and Alice Starmore's designs revel in being handknitted, any of these sweaters that you can knit (or get someone else to knit) should satisfy your or anyone else's craving for Eighties Sweaters in the Aran style.

...and, of course, eventually...

Amazon lists another bound book of Aran stitch patterns that was available in the Eighties; I don't remember ever seeing it. Before these books were published, knitters relied on magazines and yarn manufacturers' patterns for step-by-step instructions on making our own Aran-style sweaters. 

Some knitters might even have kept or found this classic: 

Typically, in the Eighties, as publishers begin printing step-by-step knitting patterns in hardcover books, Aran-type patterns were scattered around--one or two in a collection of thirty patterns, likely.