Get the squish cardigan Pattern Now!

You can get the pattern here on my website or on Ravelry.

Deanna and Kelsey are sitting close together on a foggy morning. They’re wearing matching cabled sweaters in white and brown.

The classic Cardigan of my Dreams

When I was in my early twenties, I volunteered at a teen art night. I always brought my knitting so I could stitch while the kids worked on their paintings or drawings and I wasn’t the only one. Every week another adult volunteer brought her project, a creamy cabled sweater that seemed impossibly intricate to me at the time. The most amazing thing was that she didn’t even look at her pattern most of the time. Every once in a while she’d glance at a crumpled sheet in her bag, but mostly she’d just chat and knit away. I was extremely impressed and vowed to one day make a sweater like that with such a casual attitude.

Twenty years later and I’ve achieved my goal. Not only have I designed my dream cabled heirloom cardigan, but I can tell you I actually understand how she could knit cable without hardly looking. (The answer is practice.)

I have a feeling some of you all have had a similar cabled cardigan dream because that all-over cabled cardi is such a classic knitting tradition. No sweater can be everything to everyone, but I hope some of you are seeing this and saying, “This is it! This is the pattern I’ve been waiting for!”

Back view of Deanna wearing an intricately-cabled white sweater. She’s standing in front of mossy stone steps.

The Design

This pattern is designed to be worked in pieces and seamed with mattress stitch, which I think makes a lot of sense for a garment that’s pretty heavy (hello, squishy cables!) and is relatively complex. But if you’ve only made top-down sweaters in the round and pieced sweaters make you nervous, I’ve got you covered! This pattern is designed to make your knitting life as easy as it can be with a sort of advanced pattern.

A detailed schematic of all 13 sizes will help you decide ahead of time if you’ll need to make any modifications so it fits you well.
Modification notes are included in the pattern so you’ll know where and how to add or subtract length.
The fit is relatively relaxed so you don’t have to match your measurements perfectly to have a sweater you love. I recommend rounding up if you’re in between sizes to get the look I was going for.
The cable motif is given in both a colour-coded chart and written instructions. Use whichever (or both!) suit you best. Plus, abbreviations are right there on the same page as the charted and written instructions so you don’t have to keep flipping back and forth.
Knitting in pieces allows you to get the hang of the cable pattern in small chunks without having to deal with a ton of shaping and cables all at once.
I made a video tutorial to show you how to do the mattress stitch seams! Seaming is the main thing I know a lot of knitters will be nervous about, but there are also tutorials on yarn choice, cabling without a cable needle, and a bunch of other techniques.

Closeup of Kelsey’s shoulder in a brown cabled sweater, with the emphasis on the clean shoulder seam.

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