This sweater-wearing superstar knits his way around the world

Sam Barsky of Baltimore just became a knitting superstar.

He knits sweaters showing famous landmarks around the world — and then wears them when he visits.

Stonehenge. Times Square. Niagara Falls. The Golden Gate Bridge. He’s knitted — and seen — them all.

His work has gone viral thanks to photos of his sweaters reaching the front page of Reddit and a post on Imgur on Sunday that has been viewed more than 1 million times.

“We have got to get this guy to Paris,” wrote one Imgur commenter.

Hundreds of people are flocking to his Facebook page, Artistic Knitting of Sam Barsky, where they see that his sweaters have won awards at the Maryland State Fair and have been displayed at the American Visionary Arts Museum in Baltimore.

From the comments littering Imgur and his Facebook page, there’s something about his work, and the photos of him wearing it, that makes people smile.

“He looks exactly like what I’d expect someone who makes sweaters of places then visits them would look like,” said one Imgur user.

“He looks so happy and that’s all I really need to know,” wrote another.

“I love this guy,” wrote one woman on Facebook.

He’s been at this for years. Shortly after taking up knitting in 1999, Barsky knitted his first “picture” sweater, without a pattern.

“After that was a success, I’ve been knitting sweaters like that one after another, featuring either generic scenery or specific landmarks. Anything that crosses my eyes is a potential sweater,” he told Mashable.

“The two most recent ones I did, the Bahai Gardens and the Dead Sea, were made for a trip I took in December to Israel.”

The idea to visit the landmarks he knitted came as an afterthought, he told Mashable.

“To this day, I have pictures while wearing 91 of the 103 sweaters around the exact landmark or style of scenery or something quite similar, and I have a goal of doing this for all of them, though most of the remaining ones will require travel to other continents,” he said.

They’re not all landmark sweaters, though. He’s knitted pumpkin patches, mermaids, playing cards, power lines and aquarium dwellers onto the sweaters, some of which are short-sleeved garments.

He’s working on a new sweater to honor Martin Luther King Jr.

People have started leaving suggestions for new designs on his Facebook page.

“I’d love to see your take on a Star Trek sweater one day. Great work!” wrote one woman.

“Anything that crosses my eyes is a potential sweater,” Barsky replied. “Never been into Star Trek, but you never know.”

Another woman made a special request.

This story was originally published January 9, 2017 at 2:12 PM with the headline "This sweater-wearing superstar knits his way around the world."