When we started the design process for our new designer knitting holiday season collection one of our concepts was a shell-style sweater.

Earlier in the summer I'd swatched Alta Moda Cashmere 16 Fine and fallen in love with the yarn. This lofty, elastic blend of 80% merino fine, 10% cashmere, and 10% polyamide proved to be a beautiful match for the new sweater idea.

The design evolved, and became a bottom up knitting project in two-by-two rib. It starts with slits at the hips, works upwards to armholes without trim, a crew neck, short rowed shoulders and a very simple neck band. But it wasn't interesting enough. So I spent a few days experimenting with a little band of knitted lace in the ribbing. I finally got it to work the way I wanted and voila! A lace panel was introduced from hem to neck both front and back. Was that enough? Well not yet.

I began working on an optional turtleneck-style cowl, with the two lace panels mirroring the sweater design. Both pieces are close to completion, so the patterns will be included in our holiday season collection.

If you'd like to learn the pattern for the little lace panel, please be my guest. Then, look for our designer knitting holiday season collection in the coming weeks. Cheers, James

Ribbing with Lace Panel - Worked in the round, across 14 stitches in the midst of 2 x 2 ribbing.

Row 1: K2 (K1, YO, K2tog, K1) x 3
Row 2: K1 (ssk, YO, K2) x 3, K1.

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