First of all, I would love to say thank you to each and every single person who liked, shared, commented or bought the Serendipity Sweater pattern over the weekend! Thank you! I’m so thrilled to see that you love this pattern as much as I do!

The final photos only tell one side of the story, and that’s why I thought today would be a lovely day to look closer at the design process during the making of this lovely cabled sweater. You might have followed the journey of this design on my Instagram earlier this year: I shared quite a bit process and progress pictures and videos of this one.

First of all, the yarn had been in my stash for quite a while. The sweater uses 2 different types of yarn held together to achieve this amazing look: a strand of fingering weight merino and lace weight silk mohair. I bought my Life in the Long Grass Singles, the merino skeins probably years ago from Snurre (LYS in Helsinki), thinking that the yarn is just too pretty to be left behind and that I would make something spectacular out of it! Then the Isager silk mohair was originally bought for quite a different sweater idea (something I haven’t made a reality yet, but I still might - so more on that later!), but also thought the pink shade was a super pretty one.

Then when I was packing for Vogue Knitting Live in New York, January 2024, I thought I needed to start something new and these skeins were just there waiting for me. Of course I had quite a few other projects with me as well, but one can never pack too many projects on a 5 day trip that involves a lot of teaching, right?!? Anyway, by the time I had finished teaching all my workshops and I felt all done and dusted, the I thought it would be the perfect time to cast on this new project (yay for bringing all the extra yarn).

I sketched an idea to a notebook, sort of, made a few calculations and casted on! Oh what a joyous feeling it was! Cast-on days are probably always of my happiest times, but this one was also mixed with the lovely memories of the weekend, all the wonderful knitter I had met - and I was having a nice dinner with my international (mainly Portuguese and Brazilian) friends that night! So even today, as I’m holding or wearing the finished sweater, that is the night I always think back to! Always!

I also worked solely on this sweater while traveling back home and that’s quite a few hours of plane knitting time! So by the time I was back home, I already had most of the yoke done and I was loving every single stitch!

Somehow I tend to loose a bit of interest in any project when I see that it’s turning out great and now I just need to keep going to actually finish it. So it took a place on the back burner, I kept working on it but not quite as determined as on the plane for example! Days went by, weeks went by, and slowly the sweater grew!

Once all the knitting was done and pattern fully written, there were still a few important steps before this pattern reached your hands! First of all tech editing and test knitting - and let me just tell you that this wasn’t a fully error free pattern by the time my testers started working on it! But I want to thank ever single tester for their hard work and lovely sweaters. I love to see them popping up in Ravelry or Instagram!

Then I also needed to get some pictures and juts happened to be around the Japanese Garden in Helsinki when the cherry trees were in full bloom, Hanami season, and it was the perfect background for this pink sweater! And finally, last week I got to share this pattern with you all!

I do love all the details of the sweater, but am especially partial to the neat finishes of the tubular BO and the way the stitches align from sales to ribbing! Now I’m really looking forward to seeing all of your versions of this design!