A Great Cropped Sweater to Knit for Fall

I feel like a lot of the patterns I have been sharing lately are sweaters that you can use for layering. Maybe that’s because it stayed warm for so long this year where I live that I’m still thinking about lighter weight sweaters.

I love this kind of garment for wearing over a T-shirt when it’s cool in the morning but warm in the afternoon. They’re great for throwing on top of a dress to get more use out of them when it’s cooler, or wearing under a warmer sweater when it finally gets cold.

The Sunset Sweatshirt pattern from Jessie Maed Designs is an oversized, boxy, cropped pullover with slightly dropped shoulders for a cozy fit that’s almost like your favorite sweatshirt. Worked in worsted weight yarn, it will keep you warm through several seasons, and is a great one to throw in your bag to slip on when it’s cool for part of the day.

The pattern comes in nine sizes, to fit a chest from 28 to 60 inches, or 71 to 152.5 cm. It’s designed to have 9 to 12 inches, or 23 to 30.5 cm, of positive ease, so the fit is quite relaxed. There are optional bust darts if you want to add a bit of shaping. The pattern recommends knitting a smaller size and adding darts if you have a full bust in relation to your upper chest. Jessie Maed is known for their size inclusive patterns so I’m sure it’s well explained in the pattern how to do this should you want to.

The design is worked from the top down in one piece with short row shaping for the shoulders and slightly tapered sleeves. To make this one you should be comfortable with working in the round, increasing, decreasing and working German short rows.

You can find the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Jessie Maed Designs]

Knit a Cozy Vest for Fall

A Beyond-Basic Vest to Knit for Fall or Spring

Fun Hats to Knit for Fall

Knitting and travel are two hobbies that are highly compatible. Travel often involves waiting or time spent on planes, trains, boats, etc., time that can easily be filled by knitting, a portable and productive craft you can do most anywhere (and yes, you can take your knitting on a plane most of the time).

Krista Ann combines knitting and traveling regularly and ended up visiting every continent in 2022 with her knitting needles along for the ride. The Wandering Knitter explores travel, knitting and learning new knitting skills no matter where you are.

This isn’t a book for beginners, but if you’ve wanted to learn techniques like brioche, cables, lace, colorwork, mitered squares and short rows, there’s a set of more beginner level patterns followed by ones that are bigger, more detailed or required a little more skill. For example a brioche washcloth is the beginner pattern, while a brioche sweater (with unexplained exceptionally long sleeves) is the stepped up project. A basic mesh lace scarf becomes a more complex lace kerchief. A giant mitered square cowl graduates to a mitered square tote bag.

Interspersed among the patterns are essays about traveling to different continents and what she saw there. There are also tips for traveling with your knitting and tips for reading charts, but no tutorials for knitting skills (other than a written explanation of how mosaic knitting works).

Some of the projects would be useful to have when traveling, such as fingerless gloves, a warm headband or a colorwork hat. The travel angle is an interesting hook for a book, but I would have enjoyed essays more about specific incidents or shopping for yarn in a different country or something more than the general essays about things she’s liked and places she’d like to go back to.

Still, if you’re looking for a skill building book that doesn’t focus on the basics but gives you some wearable, attractive accessories, this book is a good one to check out. Just maybe make the sleeves shorter if you knit the sweater.

About the book: 128 pages, paperback, 20 patterns. Published 2026 by Quarry Books. Suggested retail price $24.99.

Have you read?