Why Storebought Sweaters are Terrible

I enjoyed reading this article from The Atlantic about why storebought sweaters are so awful, mostly because as a knitter, I know what to do about it.

The author, Amanda Mull, was prompted to look into the knitwear industry thanks to a tweet (do we call it an X now? I don’t know) calling for a “national conversation” on the decline in knitwear quality over the past 20 years. The post was about a sweater Billy Crystal wore in When Harry Met Sally and the terrible (though expensive) counterpart Ben Schwartz wore to re-create the look.

Update: Ironically one of the projects in the Knitty surprise for deep fall 2023 was an Aran knit sweater, When Harry Met Lucy by Paul Haesemeyer, inspired in part by that very sweater.

There’s a lot of reasons knits are awful these days, Mull discovered, including fast fashion, how cheap acrylic fiber is and how much fashion companies both high and low end love profit.

The vast majority of sweaters produced today, even those that may be marketed as wool or cashmere, have some kind of acrylic or nylon (read: plastic) content, and actually a lot of yarn does, too. Of course you can find pure wool and other natural fibers, but a lot of times acrylic is added to the mix to make yarn machine washable.

That’s another factor in people not purchasing wool sweaters even if they could find them: people who aren’t yarn crafters typically aren’t doing a lot of laundry by hand.

The good news is we have the tools at our disposal to make our own wonderful sweaters, and to choose to make them with natural fibers if we want. Fast fashion is easy but those sweaters don’t feel good and they don’t last. So much better to make your own and care for it so you will continue to enjoy it for many, many years. And even if you’ve never knit a sweater before, you probably have all the skills you need to do it. (And it’s a great thing to learn for winter if you’re in the part of the world heading into that season.)

Have sweater knitting questions? Drop them in the comments and I’ll do the best I can to answer them!

[Photo via Film Updates on X]

It’s a common complaint among women and femme dressing folk that our clothes do not include enough (and enough useful) pockets. And even if your clothes do have good pockets, there’s always a chance that you’d rather have another pocket to put some essentials in rather than having to carry a whole bag.

But because we are knitters, we can take this problem into our own needles and knit ourselves some auxiliary pockets.

Beatrice Mase did just that, with a kind of fancy toolbelt pocket accessory that they call VELVET Pockets.

The stitch pattern has a plush, sort of velvet effect, thus the name, but it’s worked with regular fingering/sock weight yarn. (The sample uses wool, but you could experiment with other fibers, too.) It calls for 776 yards of 710 meters, which you might just have in your sock yarn stash.

The pattern includes several pockets of different sizes, with the main body of the pocket worked flat in one piece and the exterior pockets sewn on at the end. You also have the option of adding screw rivets and a coordinating clasp that make it look even more toolbelt chic.

The design is worked with a loop of knit fabric at the top so it can slide onto a belt. The pattern includes explanatory diagrams, photo and video tutorials and is adjustable to fit different sizes of belts.

It’s almost enough to make me want to start wearing belts again, even though I haven’t for years. Because who wouldn’t want a few extra little pockets to hold things when you don’t have enough to really justify carrying a bag around?

The pattern is available in English and French on Ravelry and you can also buy a kit complete with the yarn, rivets and clasp (the pattern is not included in the kit) direct on Etsy.

[Photo: Beatrice Mase]

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