Knit a Sheep Sweater for Your Little Princess

Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, has a knack for dressing her kiddos in adorable knits. Remember little George in his soldier boy vest?

The royal family recently released a photo of Princess Charlotte in an adorable yellow cardigan bedecked with a yoke full of bunnies.

The original sold out everywhere as soon as the photo was released, but of course knitters can make their own.

There was already a pattern on Ravelry from a bunny-yoked cardigan, the Sheep Yoke Baby Cardigan by Jennifer Little of Looking Glass Knits. Her version — a free download on Ravelry available in English and Dutch and sized for a 9 to 12-month-old — shows a beige sweater with sheep on a field of green and either blue or pink accents. To make it more like the royal cardigan in question, knit the whole body in yellow and stitch blue sheep on a white background. You could even add in your own bands of Fair Isle diamonds to the bottom of the yoke instead of the checkerboard pattern of the original.

If you wanted to make a cardigan like this for a bigger child, choose any yoked cardigan pattern you like and work in the sheep and other designs as you go.

Want to get in on the sheep trend without copying Charlotte’s look? Here are a few more great sheep cardigans for kids:

Welcome to the Flock | Julia Farwell-Clay

Hoggett | Ann Kingstone

Where the Wild Sheep Roam | Pinneguri

Or for adults, check out Farwell-Clay’s Shepherdess, Pinneguri’s Angry Sheep and Sinnasaujakka, the Summer Snow Sweater by Patrick Hassel-Zein, or Tups and Wethers, both by Kingstone. And if you’re one of the thousands who has knit a Baa-ble (or a few), those sheep would be smashing on a sweater as well.

Looking for more knitting patterns for knitted Cardigans? Check out these Knitting patterns we found on Etsy.

Specific to knitters, you can join our Knitting Patterns Only group to get, well, knitting patterns, ask questions and gain inspiration for what to knit next.

Looking for Yarn online? Check out Lionbrand our preferred source for purchasing yarn online.

Sometimes when I’m scrolling through Ravelry a pattern will catch my eye as much because of the name as the look of the design (which is a little hard to see in those little thumbnails sometimes, anyway).

So it was with the Stellify shawl by Paola Albergamo. Stellify means to turn into a star, and the name and the story behind the shawl come from the story of Ariadne. The better known part of her story is that she helped Theseus escape from the Minotaur, but he then abandoned her. What comes after in many stories is that Dionysus found her, fell in love with her and later married her.

When he threw her jeweled crown into the sky, the Corona Borealis constellation was formed.

What does all this have to do with shawl knitting?

The shawl itself looks like it has a scattering of stars on it, as if it, too, has been stellified. The shawl begins with an I-cord tap and is shaped into a triangular shawl with both lateral and central increases. I-cord edging is incorporated into the sides, and the colorwork is done with mosaic knitting, which means this shawl is easier than it looks.

Mosaic knitting has you working with just one color per row, slipping stitches that appear in the other color to make the colorwork visible. Even better for people new to this kind of colorwork, the pattern includes written and charted instructions throughout so it should be easy to follow along.

The pattern comes in two sizes (the larger one is shown here) and calls for two colors of fingering weight yarn. It looks great in black and yellow, but don’t miss the other projects on Ravelry to see other fun and beautiful color options.

You can find the pattern in English and Italian on Ravelry.

[Photo: Paola Albergamo]

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