Pattern of the Week: Plucky Cardigan

✓Let the Interweave Knits Winter 2024 issue transport you to a winter wonderland of cozy knits! This remarkable edition features 14 extraordinary projects to immerse yourself in the uniqueness of specially crafted yarns.

Do you love Tunisian? You’ll love trying out Juliette Bezold’s latest Tunisian crochet stitch pattern with the Plucky Cardigan in Interweave Crochet Fall 2018. This sweater creates the look of twisted cables without the bulkiness of overlapping stitches and difficult stitch crosses. I don’t normally find myself excited to try Tunisian projects, but Juliette’s designs have me hooked!

This beautiful sweater design drapes so much better than most crochet projects. The secret is how Juliette has worked the Tunisian stitches. The stitch pattern between the cables is an open eyelet lace pattern, allowing the solid sections of cables to really shine. The twisted appearance of the cable comes from strategically placed Tunisian simple stitch two togethers that create a visual line for your eye to follow. It seems like the stitches are twisting together, but they’re not! This conveniently eliminates bulk and excessive texture to make a lovely patterned sweater.

I’m not a lover of Tunisian, but I understood this process far more easily by doing then by listening. I grabbed some yarn and some of my favorite long Tunisian crochet hooks, and I started swatching. Once you try this pattern, and with the help of the photo tutorial we’ve included within the issue, you’ll understand how it all fits together. Once the light bulb turned on, I couldn’t put this stitch pattern down. Now that I’ve made a few swatches, I need to start working on the sweater!

Will you join me in trying out this new cable stitch pattern for the Plucky Cardigan?

Pattern Details

DESIGNER Juliette Bezold

DIFFICULTY Intermediate

FINISHED SIZE 373/4 (423/4, 473/4, 501/4, 551/4)” bust circumference, including a 41/2″ wide collar. Sample shown measures 373/4″, modeled with 23/4″ positive ease.

YARN Knit Picks Paragon (50% fine merino, 25% baby alpaca, 25% mulberry silk; 123 yd [112 m]/13/4 oz [50 g]): #26860 bison, 11 (12, 14, 16, 18) balls.

HOOK Size J/10 (6 mm) Tunisian hook with 30″ cable. Adjust hook size if necessary to obtain correct gauge.

NOTIONS Yarn needle; locking stitch markers (m).

GAUGE 1 patt rep (10 sts and 8 rows) = 21/2″, blocked.