Cardipalooza pattern update: Mine Hill Cardigan

Welcome from the west coast! I’m writing this from lovely Pacific Grove CA, at the make wear love: west coast retreat. I have a new sweater for you today, but before I share it, I wanted to address your questions about when/if the Knitter’s Toolbox app will be available on Android devices.

I’m thrilled so many of you are excited for the Android version – and it has definitely been our plan from the very start to make one! We’re too small a team to develop multiple products at the same time, though. And while there are apps that are available on both platforms, behind the scenes two teams were working in parallel to create identical-looking, but totally different, versions of the same thing. (Think of it this way: One is built with Legos, the other with K’nex.) Since CustomFit has also languished during app development time, we’ve got some things to do there before we dive into Android.

We are so small – taken all together, the 3 of us who do development don’t add up to a full-time person – so I can’t promise a specific timeline, but we will release the Android version as soon as we can. If anyone wants more information, I gave a lot more detail in my answers to the comments.

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And now, without further ado, the results of some of my Cardipalooza knitting and a brand-new sweater!

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The Mine Hill Cardigan was my first Cardipalooza inspiration, and I’m so excited to be wearing it this season. It’s made out of, and centered around, one of my favorite lines of yarn: the merino – cashmere – silk yarns from Spirit Trail Fiberworks. Jennifer has an incredible way with color, and this one – Chimney Swift – stands to become one of my all-time favorites. Tons of different greens, from lighter to dusky, make a fabric that looks near-solid when you step back a few feet, but gets deliciously complex the closer your are.

This blend, which is offered in weights from lace to worsted, produces everything I love in clothing. The knitted fabric has heft, drape, fluidity, and an incredible sheen. I’ve been itching to get another sweater in the Birte since I released Alta, and this one couldn’t be more my style.

You can read more about the design specifics, and create your own Mine Hill, here on CustomFit. In this post, I wanted to talk about why I love to wear this design so much.

Before I started working in fiber arts full time, I was in a full-on, fairly formal, corporate environment. I mostly wore suits, or suiting separates, and though I tried to mix things up a little here and there, I was honestly pretty limited in what I felt comfortable doing.

I wondered, because I think about clothes more than is maybe healthy, how my style would change with this next phase of my career. My best guess was that I’d stay on the dressier side of things, but up the modern, funky, unusual aspects of my wardrobe.

That’s not what has happened.

You’re maybe expecting me to say that I work in my pajamas all the time, but that’s not what has happened either! Instead, left unconstrained, my style is becoming a very solid mix of casual and sporty. I’m not a yoga pants person (unless I’m doing yoga), but I do tend toward clothes that support the odd blend of work and life that I’m living these days.

My ability to go from meeting to kid-racing to cooking dinner to knitting on the couch is paramount, and it’s important to me to feel put together. So I seek out clothes that are hard-wearing, flexible, and comfortable, while still retaining some bit of interest or polish.

Mine Hill has fit right in.

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The low-hip length is incredibly versatile – good for standing or sitting or crouching down to mess around in the garden. The pockets are patch pockets, to make them as strong as knit pockets can be. The fronts are wide enough to overlap, and the trim scrunches beautifully and softly against my neck. On a chilly evening walk, I can shawl-pin it closed.

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It goes well with all of my jeans, 3 or 4 of my skirts, and half a dozen tops of different weights. It matches my favorite sassy shoes, my workhorse boots, and those Birkenstocks I’m lusting after this summer.

It’s everything I love about spring sweaters, in one silky package.

I hope you like it too. You can make one through CustomFit, in whichever weight of Jennifer’s MCS bases you like, and get a sweater that looks just like this one – in your gauge, for your body. Mine Hill was designed to look great in any weight yarn.


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Cardipalooza goes through May 31st, so there’s still time to make your own and join the fun. (This is the second cardi I’ve finished this Cardipalooza, and I’m set to finish at least 2 more before the KAL closes.)

Enjoy your weekend, and we’ll see you on the flip side!

2 thoughts on “Cardipalooza pattern update: Mine Hill Cardigan

  1. Ooh, that’s going on my birthday list!

    Do you think a pair of those tiny, super strong rare earth magnets (on the inside) would work as hidden buttons? They don’t jump together until they’re less than 2″ apart, so it wouldn’t mess it up when you wear it open.

  2. LOVE the Mine Hill cardi! I’m looking forward to one of those in my wardrobe.

    Hey, do the elves know about Xamarin? We use it in our small business to streamline the effort needed to create apps for both iOS and Android. It isn’t a complete code fix, but does help us maximize our efforts, they’re not completely separate code bases. We also rolled out iOS first, and are catching up on Android, but it makes it a lot easier to maintain both.

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