Clementine's Cloud Cardigan

I’ve been keeping a good portion of my work from the previous year under wraps as much of it relates to upcoming pattern designs, but this week I’m finally posting previews for the new pattern for knits I’ve been working on — on and off — for the past three years (yup - you read that right!)!

This post is a preview for the pattern, Citrine, which is nearly ready to launch! For this version, I made a cloud cardigan for Clementine…

UPDATE: Citrine is here and is now available in my shop!

This is “view b” of the Citrine pattern (coming soon!!) which features gathered sleeves and gathered waist. You can add buttons to either view but I chose not to for this one.

I started with Cloud 9’s organic interlock, which I’ve had in my stash since at least 2015. It’s super soft, a medium weight, and fairly stretchy as interlocks go - I do really love this fabric. Clem had asked for a cloud sweater or sweatshirt at some point (she’s been really into themes on her clothes - like mushrooms, daisies, etc), but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to find a cloud print without a lot of searching so I made my own - keep scrolling for the details…

I didn’t bother putting any clouds on the back of the fabric, as by that time I was rather sick of hand stitching clouds. I think if I would do it again I might try to figure out a way to put them on by machine before sewing the pieces together? Like, cut out the pieces, then stitch the clouds on, then sew everything together. The nice way about doing it this way, though is that I could unpin them and move them around the finished sweater before I decided where to stitch them down.

For the clouds, I cut out pieces of white fleece (I had a small piece of the cheap stuff from J0ann, the stuff that gets pilly fast but actually that worked in this situation), and hand stitched them on with some stretch thread. Before I stitched each cloud entirely, I pushed a little bit of poly-fil in there to make them puff away from the surface:

The cloud placement-in-progress…

SHE LOVES.

A note on sizing: Clementine is wearing the second smallest size in this pattern, size “B.” The pattern comes in fourteen sizes A-N, designed for chest measurements from 30-66.” She’s growing, so the one I just cut out for her is a size C - but it’s nice to know that our size range works for pre-teens and teens as well as grownups! Yay!!

I’m really excited about how much she’s worn this cardigan; it’s been in steady rotation in her middle school wardrobe, which makes a mama feel quite satisfied. I mean, at this point it will take more than just one or two project wins to cancel out the massive pile of rejected things I’ve made her over her lifetime, so I’ll take a tick in the “win” column thank you very much.

Citrine will be ready for launch soon - most likely in the next couple of weeks! We’re putting the finishing touches on this pattern, so check back or sign up for my newsletter to know exactly when it drops.