the Made my Day cardigan

Firstly: September. That crept up on me. 2020 has felt like both the longest and shortest year ever, don’t you think? I’ll save the retrospective musings for my birthday or possibly Christmas, because today I have another new knitting pattern to share. These patterns have been very much the focus of my Summer, you see. Caravan holidays and days out and knitting as many new designs as possible. Can’t complain. Which means I have one more batch of photos shot in beautiful (sunny) Scotland to share whilst I lay on the sofa in jogging bottoms on a decidedly autumnal September day. Meet the Made My Day cardigan, a fluffy, stripy, boxy, cosy cardigan perfect for Autumn.

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Yarn usually comes with some kind of backstory for me, and this one goes back rather a long way. My mum and I used to attend a knitting group back in the late 00s (half my lifetime ago… wow) and have stayed in touch with a couple of others from way back when. Ursula – a hand-dyer – gave us a skein each of this beautiful vibrant mohair for our birthdays one year. I used mine in a cushion and the scraps in my Alone Together Sweater just recently, and Ursula mentioned that she still had a few skeins in a cupboard 10+ years later. She kindly offered me said skeins, and here we have the result! How perfectly do these colours work together? I can’t take credit for the combination, but I do love it. The beige yarn isn’t exactly the same, but knit to the same gauge and texture so I figured they were fine to combine. I don’t know the brand of the beige yarn as it was passed on to me third hand, but it’s a mohair blend of some sort. Slow fashion at its finest.

Yarn: I’m aware that ‘mohair from Ursula’s cupboard with unnamed mohair‘ isn’t particularly helpful when it comes to choosing yarn, so I’ve listed yarns used by test knitters too. I’m knitting a second version in Rowan Brushed Fleece – a standard chunky – that’s knitting up beautifully. In a mohair yarn the ‘fuzz’ fills in the gaps between stitches, so it’s worked to a fairly loose gauge. Any yarn (or combination of yarns) that meets the gauge of 12 stitches and 18 rows to 4″ should work. A chunky / bulky weight yarn without fuzz will produce a denser fabric and thus heavier cardigan. Various combinations of yarn weights held together will also work well, such as Aran + laceweight fluff, 2 strands DK, Aran + 4ply, etc. Plenty of scope for mixing and matching and using up stash yarn, so long as you swatch and block!

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Striping: in this first sample I worked the entire upper body in Yarn A (beige), worked random stripes on the lower body and sleeves, and regular narrow stripes on the cuffs and neckband. The Made My Day cardigan knitting pattern is designed to be used as a blank canvas to add stripes or colour blocks however you wish (or not at all!), and there are 4 templates included in the pattern PDF for colour planning. It took me several attempts with marker pens to settle on a combination. I’ve loved seeing all the different test knitter versions.

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Sizing: for this pattern I’d recommend choosing a size based on how much ease you’d like the finished cardigan to have. The boxy shape means the body and sleeve lengths are easily adjusted, and the drop shoulders make for a forgiving fit around the upper body.

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Yarns used by test knitters:

Rowan Brushed Fleece // Sirdar Harrap Tweed Chunky // Berocco Vintage Chunky // Sirdar Temptation // Fyberspates Faery Wings with Hobbycraft Leader of the Pac // DROPS Air with DROPS Kid-Silk // Rauma Alpakka Lin // Knit Picks Billow // We Are Knitters The Petite Wool // Lion Brand Re-Tweed

The Made My Day cardigan pattern is also available via Ravelry here.

Lily Kate x

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