Photo courtesy of Hannah Fetig.
"This design came about after the success of my Whisper Cardigan. I tried to think about why people liked that sweater, and this influenced Featherweight Cardigan. At the time there weren't many patterns for lightweight sweaters like these. I love wearing clothing made from jersey, and wanted to create knit sweaters that would have that same feel. The original Featherweight Cardigan is in a single ply lace weight yarn knit at a larger gauge - to me this achieved the desired fabric. Top down sweaters were really becoming popular around this time as well, and so the top down lace weight cardigan came to be! I would say that it did turn out as intended! A later version of the cardigan was published with Quince & Co. in my book Knitbot Essentials. This is the same pattern, but knit using fingering weight yarn which gives it a different feel.
I never anticipated how far Featherweight would go! I feel grateful, but also like all its success has nothing to do with me. It's all about the knitters and what they’ve been able to do with it. This pattern is a great first sweater project and I love how many knitters it has helped in this way! People have knit Featherweight for their weddings and other special events, which feels like an honor to me.
Featherweight led to everything that followed for me in the knitting industry so it certainly holds a special place. Fun fact: the original picture of the yellow Malabrigo version was taken by me. My friend agreed to model the sweater. I had just found out I was pregnant with my son and I was so sick from the pregnancy I could barely take the picture! A career building design and a beautiful baby boy were both born that year."