Tweedy with a Chance of Cables
Happy 2025! To kick off the new year, here's my latest design: Happenchance.
At its core, Happenchance is a top-down set-in sleeve cardigan with a V-neck, an optional shawl collar, and a wide ribbed hem. This design was born out of the desire to explore the contiguous construction a little more. Whereas Chai Misto was a crew neck pullover, this time I wanted to do something a little different: a V-neck cardigan. The name 'Happenchance' is a portmanteau, a fancy French word for mash-up: it's made by combining 'happenstance' and 'chance', both meaning something that occurs unpredictably or unexpectedly.
From the front, Happenchance might look like the classic grandpa cardigan, even down to the tweedy oatmeal color. Simple stockinette, V-neck with a shawl collar, basic 2×2 ribbing… all it needs is some leather elbow patches! But the unexpected focal point of the design is revealed when you turn around. The entire back is covered with a massive panel of staggering cables, weaving to and fro like sand dunes in the wind.
All 10 sizes in the pattern start with just three cables on the back neck. As the stitches are increased, more and more of those stitches are incorporated into the cable panel, adding new cable repeats at both sides of the back. To counteract the fact that cables pull in more than stockinette, increases are made at the beginning of each new cable repeat so that the back of the sweater isn't cinched in. While I usually advocate for cabling without a cable needle, these cables are so wide that using a cable needle might actually be more practical.
As said, the cardigan features top-down set-in sleeves using the contiguous method developed by Susie Myers. On the blog post for Chai Misto I discussed what sets the contiguous method apart from top-down raglans, for instance, such as the S-curve shape increases that better follow the human anatomy than the straight line that's typical for raglan sleeves.
Another distinguishing feature of the contiguous sleeve construction is that at certain points of the shaping, such as on the sleeve caps, increases are made very rapidly: one stitch at every increase point on every row. This, of course, means increasing also on wrong-side rows… and that's what I did on Chai Misto.
This time, however, I wanted to give the knitter regular breaks when you can switch your brain off. In Happenchance, all shaping and cable twists occur only on right-side rows so you can just enjoy the ride on purl-back rows. But how to resolve the rapid increase rate? With double increases. At certain points in the pattern you're working, back to back, both lifted increases and M1L/M1R strand increases.
Because there's a lot going on in the pattern at the same time — contiguous shaping, V-neck increases, and cable twists all happen simultaneously but at different rates! — I've provided row-by-row checklists that break down the stitch counts for the fronts, back, and sleeves from the cast-on edge to the underarm separation. The checklists are included in a separate file with one page containing the stitch counts for one size so that you can print off just the page you need. My test knitters found these checklists invaluable and felt they would've been completely lost without them.
Speaking of the V-neck… I'm perpetually cold so I don't usually wear V-neck garments as I find them often too open and too deep. The V-neck on Happenchance, on the other hand, ends pretty high up on the front chest. Adding another layer of warmth is the wide shawl collar that frames the V-neck. The shawl collar is shaped with short rows, starting with the shoulder points and gradually extending the rows all the way to the bottom of the V-neck.
Shawl collars can look so enticing in pattern photos. You can just imagine yourself in front of the fireplace and practically feel the coziness of a bit of extra wool around your neck. But everyone who's ever knit a shawl collar knows they have a tendency to flip up. While working on this design I discovered four key aspects of great shawl collars:
Shawl collars need to be deep enough — way deeper than you think! It's the same phenomenon when the hem of the sweater wants to flip up: the weight of the ribbing needs to counteract the flip. Merely doubling the length of the button band doesn't cut it.
Shawl collars need a fold line, a distinct place in the ribbing that tells it where to fold down. I swatched different methods of creating a fold line with slipped stitches: slipping with yarn in front, slipping with yarn in back, slipping the knit stitches, slipping the purl stitches… In the end I discovered that a simple purl ridge performs best!
The outer collar needs to be slightly longer than the inner collar. This way the fold line doesn't fall precisely in the middle of the shawl collar but a few rows before. Even when the collar wants to curve up from the mid-line — and it will — it doesn't rise up too much so as to reveal the wrong side.
The bind-off edge needs to be stretchy, especially around the shawl collar part. This way the stitches on the outer edge of the shawl collar can accommodate the slightly longer path they need to take around the back neck and upper shoulders.
All in all, these four key aspects help the shawl collar stay down even when you're moving about. But if you're not a fan of shawl collars (or short rows), it's easy to skip and just do regular button bands instead. The pattern includes instructions for both options. The button bands feature one-row buttonholes for 2×2 ribbing, done in the purl columns of the rib pattern so that they're as invisible as possible.
In addition to the contiguous shaping, the pattern also includes bust shaping instructions. Vertical bust darts are done with increases and decreases at the sides of each breast about one or two inches' width away from the bust apex. Following Kim McBrien Evans' representative size chart, the pattern includes pre-calculated instructions for a B cup in sizes XS–S, D cup in sizes L–4X, and F cup in sizes 5X–6X.
But not every body adheres to the same fit model. If your body measurements don't align with the numbers in this sizing chart, you can calculate custom bust shaping based on your own upper and full bust measurements — instructions for this are included in the pattern.
The body of the cardigan is gently A-lined and ends in a deep ribbing that hugs the hips. Here's another unexpected hidden gem in the design: two forethought set-in pockets are cleverly concealed within the ribbing. Always practical in any garment, these pockets are done in such a way that no sewing is required. You only need to pick up stitches, work in the round, then close the bottom of the pocket bag with three-needle bind-off.
Happenchance comes in 10 sizes from XS to 6X, to fit upper bust circumferences of approx. 71–163 cm or 28–64¼ inches. Since this is a contiguous set-in sleeve design, I recommend choosing a size based on both upper bust circumference and cross-chest distance to get a good fit in shoulders. Bust shaping can then be added (or omitted) based on your measurements. The cardigan is intended to be worn with approx. 5 cm (or 2") of positive ease at the bust and a little more, 7.5 cm (or 3") positive ease at waist.
To knit the pattern you'll need approx. 1080–2490 meters or 1180–2730 yards of sport-weight yarn. For my oatmeal-colored sample I used Vuonue Recycled Elsa (360 m/100 g, 394 yd/3.53 oz), a yarn made up of 30% new wool and 70% of recycled wool from post-consumer textiles — that's what gives the yarn the colorful tweed flecks. Vuonue also has a regular line of Elsa that's all new wool and can work just as well in this design.
Don't be alarmed if you discover that this yarn is actually categorized as fingering weight. Due to its rustic nature Elsa knits up closer to a sport-weight gauge than a true fingering, like a slick superwash sock yarn. Great substitutes for Elsa include Rauma Finull, Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Sport, or Cascade 220 Sport (not the superwash kind), to name a few. De Rerum Natura Ulysse would bring out the cables spectacularly well. Size-by-size yardage estimates as well as the schematic for finished measures are presented on the pattern page.
Happenchance is intended for more experienced knitters who are ready to try a different garment-construction method, enjoy working on a project with a mix of techniques, and want to customize the fit to their body shape and measurement. The cardigan you'll get out of the project is a classic with a modern twist, a great layering piece for those chilly nights.
The pattern is now available in my Payhip, LoveCrafts, and Ravelry (seizure warning) pattern shops. If you're on my mailing list, check your email for a 20% off coupon code that's valid until the end of January 2025! Share photos of your cardigan on Instagram with the hashtags #happenchancecardigan and #talviknits.
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