St Catherines

In recent months, I’ve been enjoying developing a small collection of lighter knits in Milarrochy Tweed. I’ve just published the final design in this collection – St Catherines.

I seem to be exploring dolman and batwing-esque sleeves a lot in my design work at the moment. With St Catherines, I wanted to design a really simple, useful summer cardigan: something you might knit at the beach, and then be able to throw on in the evening if you were going out somewhere nice for supper.

I think of this cardigan style as something between a shrug and a shawl, covering the shoulders, arms, and upper body.

Could I create an upper-body-covering piece of fabric, then extend the sleeves and body so that it grew into more of a jacket?

This is how St Catherines is shaped.

You start by knitting the body, from the bottom up, developing the sleeves integrally.

The shoulders are joined with a three-needle bind off, and further length is added to the sleeves, knitting downward from the elbow.

Then the back and collar are shaped, using a really simple short row technique, in which you just pick up stitches, knit, and shape, progressively.

Finally, an edging is added all around the cardigan, concluding with an i-cord.

The end result is a very simple, but pleasingly structured, almost multi-directional piece. The squooshy garter stitch just works so nicely with the Milarrochy Tweed. . .

Once bound off, the finishing is minimal (just a few ends to weave in) – you can shrug on your shrug and head out the door!

I’m wearing St Catherines here in the first size, with just a few inches of ease (to allow the fronts to connect and overlap at an angle), but I think this is a garment which also looks great worn with much more ease – I’ll be able to show you photographs of a larger sample, with 8-9 inches of ease, which has also been knitted slightly differently.

We took these photographs on the pier at St Catherines on the shore of Loch Fyne.

Its a couple of months since they were taken, and I find it curious looking at them since my appearance has recently undergone quite a radical change. . .

You’ll see that alteration in the photographs of the second St Catherines sample . . . more of which soon.

St Catherines is now available on Ravelry as a single pattern, or in kit form in the shop. As with many Milarrochy Tweed projects, I think it’s quite a reasonably priced garment to knit, with kit prices starting at just under £40.