Nobody makes the sweaters my aunt used to knit.

On the thirty-two patterned knits with all their color up at the shoulders — and nothing at all across the middle.

By Sandra Thompson · Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

Posted August 2026 · 6 min read

I am 63, and my aunt Ruth knitted sweaters. Every one of them had a wide band of pattern around the shoulders — little diamonds, zigzags, rows of tiny flowers — and then the rest of it was one plain color and she left it alone.

I have looked for that sweater for about twenty years. What is in the stores is either entirely plain, or it has a large printed thing across the front of it. Once every few years I find a real one in a thrift store, always in somebody else's size, and I stand there holding it.

It was my daughter Sarah, up in Boston, who sent me a link and said I think these are the ones you keep describing. They come from a small family boutique here in South Carolina. Before I tell you what I found, I think you should read the Clarke family's letter first.

The Clarke family runs a small boutique here in South Carolina, family-run since 1986 — three generations, mother to daughter. They have brought in thirty-two of these, and their letter walks through why they are all built the same way underneath. I am going to let their words carry it, because they say it better than I could.

1The color sits at the shoulders, not across the middle

Every sweater in this collection is built the same way. A deep band of pattern runs the whole way around the neck and shoulders, and below that the body is one plain color. That is not decoration for its own sake — it is the oldest trick in knitting. All the interest sits up where your face is, and there is nothing whatsoever drawn across the widest part of you.

2Every pattern is knitted, never printed

Not one of these has a design laid on top of the fabric. The colors are worked in as the sweater is made, which is why you can see the pattern from the inside as well as the outside, and why it cannot crack, peel or wash away. A printed sweater is a plain sweater with something added to it. A knitted-in pattern is the sweater.

3Knitted loose, the way a person knits

Look closely at the stitches. They are large and a little soft at the edges, with a faint halo to the yarn — the gauge a person knits at, not the tight flat face a machine produces when it is being efficient. It is also why they are warm without weight: an open knit holds air, and air is what keeps you warm.

4Some of them have a little joke in them

Among the thirty-two there are a few that break the rule and put something across the chest instead — a row of small sheep in fluffy white and black wool, a meadow of wildflowers. They are still knitted in, still raised off the surface, and they are there for the woman who would like one sweater that makes people smile at her in the grocery store.

5They go over a plain tee and jeans

Because the body of each one is a single plain color, there is nothing to match and nothing to work around. A white tee underneath, jeans, and you are dressed. These are not sweaters for an occasion — they are cut relaxed and finished with ribbing at the neck, cuffs and hem, and they are meant to be the thing you reach for on the ordinary days.

6Thirty-two of them, all at one price

There are thirty-two designs in the collection and they are every one of them the same price, so choosing is about which pattern you like and nothing else. Sizing varies a little from design to design, so check the chart on whichever one you pick rather than assuming — that is the only part of this we would ask you to slow down for.

These, against what the stores are selling

Why they're clearing them now

They priced these at $200.95 when they came in, and they sold at that price all season. But for America's 250th, the Clarke family wanted to give something back to the women who have kept their doors open since 1986 — so every one of the thirty-two is going out at less than a third of that.

Mine arrived a few days later in a box on the bed. I turned it inside out first, which is what my aunt would have done.

I do not usually write things like this. But I had spent twenty years describing a sweater to people and being told that nobody makes them like that any more, and it turns out somebody does — thirty-two of them. If you have been looking for the same one, I hope you find your size before they clear.

— Sandra Thompson · Mount Pleasant, SC

This is a personal account from a Clarke Family customer. Sandra was not paid to write it. · The Clarke Family · Family Fashion · South Carolina, since 1986 · Free UPS shipping · 30-day money-back guarantee.