Marilyn’s chunky knit cardigan

Marilyn Monroe cardigan
Photo by George Barris

In 1962, George Barris took a series of photos of Marilyn Monroe on Santa Monica beach. So, technically, this isn’t from the silver screen. This shoot takes chunky cardigans into a wardrobe staple, if not a pin up status. This is very similar to the one in Starsky & Hutch too.

If you love barbeques on the beach, even in the summer you need something warm to wrap up in as the sun sets.

I’ve wanted to have one of these for a while, but nobody seems to knit it to look like the photo. The stitches seem more textured than plain knit, perhaps because it’s chunky. I couldn’t get the right look, so I experimented with some different stitches to find the right look.

 

 

Compared to that, drawing out the Cowichan design was easy! Figuring out the colours we fun too. It was my brother who pointed out that there is a fourth colour. Look carefully at the diamonds in some of the photos, and you can pick out a dark grey.

 

 

I used a similar cardigan pattern from the Seventies, although I think I ended up altering most of it to get the right look.

Contact me if you’re interested in commissioning one!

 

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12 thoughts on “Marilyn’s chunky knit cardigan

  1. Oh, I’m also trying to find the right pattern which landed me here.
    I think your work is quite close to the original but the knitting pattern (honeycomb stich?) is too strong and thick, the cardigan too long and the fourth colour is yellow.

    Like

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