Last edited by YoungIvy (2017-09-29 09:23:54)
Arran sweater - Gift from mom & dad after a trip to Scotland, handknit
Shirt - Polo Ralph Lauren
Pants - Lands End Traditional Fit Cords
Shoes - Alden x Leatherfoot (a local shoe store), Chromexcel PTB in Grant last
Good bye to summer. The last day with temps in the 80's has departed until next year. Cool and rainy today.
OC's shetland in "Earth."
Brooks light blue check broadcloth
501's
Waxed desert boots with Vibram soles.
^ I never knew that.
Aran sweaters from Scotland !!!????
Heresy! My aunties used to send hand knitted Arans over to me every year when i was a lad.
They are as Irish as Barry's tea,Soda bread and white pudding, lets hear no more of this Scottish tosh.
Last edited by Armchaired (2017-10-01 13:57:09)
Mmm .... we're so lucky that so many of you prefer to live in England and show us the error of our ways!
I prefer to live here because its my country as its where i was born.
My view of Ireland is typical of the irish diaspora, largely romantic and bears little to reality.
However....Aran Sweaters are Irish and i will fight anyone that disagrees..
Surprised that there's so many Irish descendants here in the first place. Count me in.
Aran sweaters are Irish, surely. The Irish need a penny to their name, anyway. The Scots are stealing all the glory on the sweater market!
Maybe you lot are right... I've not checked this fact properly on the internet...
However I did spend many summers on the isle of Arran where arran jumpers were worn by most on the island (in the 70's I may add).
My family has been in the wool trade for 50+ years and some of that has been selling Arran wool along with the patterns for said Arran jumpers . I deliverd hundreds of Arran jumper patterns to small wool shops ( now almost gone sadly) all over Scotland..
The OP said ARRan jumper - you lot are talking by about ARan jumpers - similar I grant, but also different if you happen to know the isle of Arran . Hence my comment that if one was visiting the isle of Arran ( stunning and unique place to visit btw) in Scotland you could easily buy a local Arran jumper as a true Scottish gift and just as 100% Scottish as a Shetland jumper or Harris Tweed jacket .
https://www.motolegends.com/casual-clothing/mcqueen-arran-jumper-wheat.html
There's obviously two ways of spelling this, which relate to two different places where the locals make sweaters.
If someone spoke the words 'Aran sweater' to me, or 'Arran sweater'( bearing in mind I wouldn't know how they were spelling it) then I would think of one of those cream coloured woolies like the one in Dopeman's link.
Plus Dopeman has provided compelling personal testimony of the Caledonian knitting industry.
seems they make Aran-style sweaters in Arran. this led me to guess that there would be Fair Isle knitwear produced in Ireland and there is, but to me a Fair Isle sweater is still a Scottish thing .....
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/r/regional-knitting-in-the-british-isles-and-ireland/
The Aran sweater - or bawneen - is definitely Irish and is what most people think of when they hear the words ‘Aran’ in connection with knitwear. The garment was hyped up somewhat after the American documentary of the 1930s ‘Man of Aran’. Further hype in recent decades is the pretence of particular patterns belonging only to certain family names.
People in the Scottish Isle of Arran are certainly not routinely wearing such jumpers in this century. Even in Ireland the fashion probably peaked in the late 1960s/1970s - husbands abandoning the suit for Mass on Sunday etc.
Another Isle of Arran souvenir might be malt whisky. A newish distillery opened in Lochranza about 21 years ago - the whisky is not heavily peated.
Last edited by Kingston1an (2017-10-02 07:16:37)