Back in late 2007, my mom and I were shopping at the Galleria in St. Louis, and we happened upon this sweater in Brooks Brothers. I had never actually bought anything in Brooks Brothers, and it seemed at little bit "out of my league," to be entirely honest. I thought the pink and brown Fair Isle sweater was the bee's knees, and my mom purchased it for me as my Christmas present that year.
While it was my first thing from Brooks Brothers, it wasn't the last. They usually have a few Fair Isle sweaters each year, and I keep an eye on them. It is one of the few stores where I've seen wool Fair Isle sweaters, ready-made. Fair Isle is usually hard to find, often only in two colors, and typically not wool. The wool yarn, to knit it yourself, is generally more expensive than a store-bought sweater (even at Brooks Brothers), and a store-bought sweater is instant gratification! One of the benefits, also, of a store-bought sweater is that they are machine-knit, which allows them to use finer yarn than most of us are willing to use in hand knitting.
Another sweater I picked up at Brooks Brothers is actually one in cotton yarn, a spring sweater in short sleeves.
The short-sleeved sweater looks really cute over a long-sleeved cotton shirt, and I have one in green gingham that looks great with the little green squares in the sweater. The reason I showed this sweater, though, is because it has the 1818 worked into the shoulder. That's when Brooks Brothers was founded. I find this particularly amusing because Illinois became a state in 1818. I just saw a whole table of Illinois sweatshirts in Sam's that had 1818 on the chest and sleeve. :)
Even with the various sweaters I've collected over the years, the original pink and brown one is my favorite. I have a thing for pink. When I was a sophomore in college, some of the people in my dorm gave me a hard time about wearing pink so much, and I took it as a challenge to wear pink as much as possible, after that. I also painted my room pink and put down a pink carpet. It was odd because there seemed to be a "rebellion" theme on our floor (4th West, East Campus), and folks there tended to wear a lot of black and motorcycle boots and things like that. Meanwhile, there were those on the floor that didn't appreciate my lack of assimilation. It was fine and dandy to be rebellious, but only if I was rebellious like them. (Ironic, huh?) The more I was frowned-upon, the more pink I became. Stubborn. Long story short, after sophomore year, I moved to another floor!
My pink streak cooled off after sophomore year, though I've always had a soft place in my heart for it. In late 2016, when I was shopping for a car to replace my VW diesel (because VW was about to "buy back" my diesel Jetta), I spent several months hemming and hawing about what I might want to get, and I just wasn't moved by any particular thing. Then, I happened to be in the VW dealership and saw a #PinkBeetle in the showroom. The model was a "special edition," only 500 of them made as a breast-cancer awareness promotion. They were a 2017 model, and they flew out of showrooms rather quickly. Well, I don't have breast cancer, but I took one look at that car and thought Karma had led me to it... and such perfect timing, too. It had my name on it.
After buying the #PinkBeetle (the official model name, and the first car to be named with a hash tag), the pink in my wardrobe had a resurgence. (I also delivered a proposal at work with pink separator sheets between the sections! Hah!) For Christmas this year (2017), my soul-sister, Babs, made me a beaded picture of the car. So cute! (I guess I'm making a nuisance of the pink thing, kind of "sophomoric," I suppose...)
Thanks, Babs! You're the best!!!
Happy Knitting,
Lisa Kay
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