Sam Barsky’s Charming Threads

Baltimore-based artist, Sam Barsky has been knitting sweaters with intricate designs for 24 years. He often knits sweaters of recognizable local landmarks, as well as international landmarks, holiday festivities, nature scenery, and more.

Barsky hosted a talk on October 9, 2024 at the Enoch Pratt Library where he discussed his work, and how he got into knitting.

Barsky has amassed a large following on social media from showing off his creations. He has over 244 thousand followers on his TikTok, @sambarsky, and over 227 thousand followers on his Instagram, @sambarskyknitter.

What has helped Barsky to gain so much traction online is through the posts he makes. Often photos will show him standing in front of different landmarks wearing a matching sweater that depicts the landmark. His sweaters have taken him all across the globe, and he has so far visited thirty-three countries, proudly wearing his sweaters at many featured landmarks.

As a kid, Barsky occasionally enjoyed arts and crafts but he never envisioned he would grow up to be an artist. He always enjoyed the natural sciences and during his time at college, he began studying to be a nurse. But soon he found it was not for him, and dropped out after a couple of semesters.

By 1999, Barsky began experiencing physical health issues, and was later diagnosed with a chronic illness. Due to this, he had to take a step back from his education. He felt lost and unsure of what he wanted to do in life.

Barsky remembered that during his time at college, he had often run into people knitting or crocheting. He was always very enamored by it and enjoyed watching people work on their different projects. This is what made him begin to learn to crochet and knit on his own, but it was not until dropping out of college that he began to see the possibility of becoming more advanced.

He ended up learning to knit at a local craft shop. With the year 1999 wrapping up, by the turn of the century, 2000, Barsky had finally completed his very first sweater, which took him eight months to finish. It was only a basic solid-colored sweater, but he was very proud of this accomplishment.

After his first knitting success, he was determined to keep going. He made a second solid colored sweater within two months, and felt his craftsmanship had improved substantially.

After almost a year of knitting, he began to experiment with patterns. He made his third sweater by following a globe pattern that he bought from Vogue magazine. After completing his globe sweater, which was a complicated design, he began searching for his next challenge; however, all of the patterns he looked at were not to his liking. This is when he decided he would design a sweater on his own. He found that nature sparked inspiration for him and began working on a design for a cloudy sky sweater.

Quickly, Barsky became frustrated trying to design patterns on graph paper, so he began to knit without a pattern and would freehand whatever came to mind. He continued to add onto his initial idea of his cloudy sky sweater, also incorporating a waterfall, rocks, a river, a waterwheel, and a bridge.

It was not long before he became confident enough to wear his sweaters out in public and started receiving many compliments from those who took notice. This made him feel proud of his work and it also led to his first opportunity of having his work displayed in a museum.

While nature continued to be a source of inspiration for him, he began to pivot to making landmark sweaters once he realized how creative it would be to wear them at the landmarks and take photos to document them as he traveled.

He started to share photos of his sweaters on Facebook, and his work began to go viral. Soon, people were beginning to recognize him in public.

Barsky has created many different designs over the years. Featuring landscapes such as the London Tower Bridge, Camden Yards, Ellicott City, Niagara Falls, Stonehenge, the Baltimore Inner Harbor, and many more.

Since his virality, Barsky has received great attention for his work and he has been interviewed by BBC, NPR, Jimmy Kimmel, Good Morning America, Time Magazine, The Washington Post, and many more. His work has also been featured in multiple museums.

As of 2024, Barsky has created a collection of 168 sweaters which has taken him over 25 years of work to produce.

Although many have requested that Barksy sell his sweaters, he chooses not to. He explains that it would be impossible to keep up with the demand as each sweater can take roughly a month to make, and he treasures his creations so much that he would not want to part with them. However, he often gives fans the opportunity to wear his sweaters at his different events and presentations

Barsky’s works will be featured at the Smithsonian as part of the Renwick Gallery in Washington D.C. Fans of Barsky’s works will have an opportunity to see his sweaters in person from August 2025 all the way to July 2026.