In the past few months, I’ve had a couple of designs published in books that I have yet to share here on the blog. The first of which is the Alpine Tweed cardigan, as featured in Ann Budd’s new book The Knitter’s Handy Book of Top Down Sweaters.

This book is a sequel to Ann’s wildly popular Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweaters, which was published in 2002 and acts as a sort of sweater recipe book for various styles and gauges of yarn. With her new book, Ann set out to create a companion handbook for garments that are worked from the top down (from collar to hem). The top-down knitting experience is fun and has some great advantages, like being able to try a garment on as you work in order to execute exact sleeve and body lengths.

Ann asked 4 designers to each create a garment for the various yoke styles outlined in the book: Raglan, Saddle-Shoulder, Set-In Sleeve and Round Yoke. Alongside my garment are designs from fellow BT Design Team Member Véronik Avery, Wool People 1 contributor Ann Hanson, and my dear friend Pam Allen. Ann has also designed several sweaters in each style. What good company!

My assignment was the set-in sleeve – an architecture that begins with the fronts and back of the garment yoke being worked separately down from the (shaped) shoulder seam to the underarm, where they are joined into one piece and the rest of the shaped body is worked seamlessly to the hem. The top-down sleeves – which are picked-up and worked directly from the armholes – begin with short rows to complete the set-in cap shaping. After completion of the cap, the sleeves are worked in a traditional circular fashion, shaped with decreases to the cuff.

The design features a fitted, hourglass waist, stranded colorwork yoke and body trim, three-quarter sleeves and a contiguous ribbed trim that tackles the body hem and button band in one fell swoop. The trim also features increased miter lines at the corner turns as well as a Tubular Bind Off, worked in a contrasting color. The ribbed collar is a subtle ribbed crescent – also shaped with short rows – higher at the back neck than at the front.

The design is knit with Shelter in colors Soot (sweater color), Sweatshirt and Homemade Jam (colorwork/trim colors).

I wanted to create a garment with a classic silhouette and plenty of subtle details. It was a fun experiment for me since I haven’t done too much designing with a top-down set-in sleeve construction. It’s always good to change things up and try something new!