Say Hiiii to the Sundae Sweater! 🌸🐻💕 Summer Holidays = New Sweater Design
If you’ve been around here for a while, you already know that the changing of seasons is basically our favorite excuse to sit down with a cup of something warm (or iced, depending on how dramatic the weather is being), open up a fresh sketchbook page, and dream up a new knitting project. And this summer? Oh, this summer delivered something really special. Introducing the Sundae Sweater — our newest design, and honestly, one we’ve been bursting to share with you since the moment it came together.
Pull up a chair, grab your favorite yarn, and let’s talk all about it.
Where It All Started
There’s something about long, slow summer days that gets the creative wheels spinning in a totally different way than any other time of year. The pace changes. You’re sitting outside a little more, noticing things — the way ice cream drips in the heat, the soft pinks and creams of flower stalls, the warm toffee tones of sunbaked afternoons. Little visual moments that stick with you.
That’s exactly where the Sundae Sweater was born. It wasn’t planned in a formal, sit-down-and-design-a-collection kind of way. It grew organically out of a summer holiday mood — the kind of gentle, unhurried headspace where you’re sketching ideas on the back of a notebook just because it feels good, not because you’re trying to produce anything in particular.
The name came pretty early on. A sundae feels inherently joyful. It’s layered, it’s a little indulgent, it’s sweet without trying too hard. That felt exactly right for the energy we wanted this sweater to carry. Something that makes you smile when you look at it. Something that feels like a treat to knit and an even bigger treat to wear.
What Makes the Sundae Sweater Special
Let’s get into the good stuff, because we know that’s why you’re here.
The Sundae Sweater is designed with beginners firmly in mind — and we really do mean that. This isn’t one of those patterns that says “beginner-friendly” in the title but then assumes you already know seventeen different techniques. This is a pattern built from the ground up to be genuinely accessible, genuinely enjoyable for someone who is still finding their knitting legs, and genuinely beautiful even in its simplicity.
The construction is straightforward and satisfying. You’re working mostly in stockinette, which is the perfect stitch for a beginner because it’s repetitive in the best possible way — once you’ve got your rhythm, it almost becomes meditative. Cast on, knit, purl, breathe. The structure of the sweater is designed so that you’re never juggling too many things at once, and the shaping is gentle and gradual, which means there are no scary sudden increases or decreases that make your heart sink a little when you flip the page.
The silhouette is what we’d call a relaxed, slightly boxy fit. This is intentional for a few reasons. First, it’s flattering on a huge range of body shapes and sizes, and we always want our designs to feel like they belong to as many people as possible. Second, a more relaxed fit is genuinely more forgiving to knit. When a sweater has a lot of close tailoring, small inconsistencies in gauge can really show up and affect the final fit. With the Sundae Sweater’s easy, comfortable silhouette, you have a little more room to breathe, which makes the whole process feel so much less stressful — especially if you’re a newer knitter who is still working on getting consistent tension.
The sleeves are the kind you don’t have to be afraid of. Slightly cropped, a little puffed at the top, and sewn in with a simple technique that we walk you through step by step in the pattern. They add the cutest shape without being complicated, and they’re one of the details that really make the finished sweater look and feel like something you’d see in a boutique window.
The Yarn and the Color Palette
Part of what gives the Sundae Sweater its personality is the color story behind it. When we were thinking about shades that matched the sundae feeling — that summery, dessert-table, vintage-ice-cream-parlor vibe — we kept coming back to a palette of soft blush pinks, warm creams, and dusty mauves. Think strawberry sauce, vanilla soft-serve, cherry on top.
These shades work beautifully in a DK weight yarn, which is what the pattern calls for. DK weight is a wonderful yarn for beginners for so many reasons. It’s substantial enough that you can see your stitches clearly, which is incredibly helpful when you’re learning, but it’s not so bulky that your finished fabric feels heavy or stiff. The resulting fabric has a lovely drape that makes the Sundae Sweater feel genuinely wearable — not like a practice piece, but like a real, beautiful garment you’ll actually reach for.
We’d suggest looking for a yarn with a slight sheen or a soft halo if you want to really lean into the dreamy, dessert-soft aesthetic. Merino blends are particularly lovely for this kind of project because they’re gentle against the skin, easy to work with, and they take color really beautifully. If you run warm or you’re knitting this with the intention of wearing it in transitional weather rather than deep winter, a merino-cotton blend might be your new best friend.
Of course, the Sundae Sweater would look wonderful in any color you love. We’ve seen people eyeing it in sage green, in a soft oatmeal, in a dusty sky blue. The pattern works across the palette, so pick the color that makes your heart sing when you pull it out of the bag — because you’re going to be spending a lot of happy time with it.
Sizing and Fit
The Sundae Sweater comes in a range of sizes designed to include as many knitters as possible. We’ve always believed that knitwear patterns should feel like invitations, not gatekeepers, and that means thinking carefully about size inclusivity from the very beginning of the design process rather than as an afterthought.
The pattern is graded across sizes with careful attention to how the proportions and details translate across the range. The puffed sleeve, for example, is scaled so that it looks intentional and beautiful whether you’re making the smallest size or the largest. The length of the body is calibrated so the cropped-but-not-tiny proportions read well across all sizes.
When you’re deciding which size to make, the pattern will guide you through taking your measurements and comparing them to the finished garment measurements — because with a relaxed-fit sweater like this, you’re choosing a size based on how much ease you want over your actual measurements, not just on matching your chest measurement exactly. The pattern explains all of this clearly, so even if you’ve never thought about ease before, you’ll feel confident by the time you cast on.
A Note for True Beginners
If you have never knit a sweater before, the Sundae Sweater is genuinely one of the best places to start, and we don’t say that just because we made it. We say it because of specific, deliberate choices in the design.
The pattern is written in a way that assumes you know the very basics — casting on, knitting, purling, casting off — but not much more than that. Every technique that goes slightly beyond those fundamentals is explained within the pattern itself, not just referenced by name. We’re not going to tell you to “seam as preferred” and leave you to figure out what that means at midnight with a half-finished sweater and mild panic setting in. We show you.
We also included lots of notes throughout the pattern about what you’re doing and why. Understanding the logic of construction makes knitting so much more intuitive, and we’ve always found that knitters who understand why they’re doing something are so much less likely to feel lost or anxious when they hit an unfamiliar step. The pattern is designed to make you feel confident, not just to give you a list of instructions to follow robotically.
If you’ve been wanting to knit your first sweater for a while but have been putting it off because it feels like too big a leap — please let this be the thing that changes your mind. The Sundae Sweater is designed specifically for that exact feeling. It’s saying, gently but enthusiastically: you can do this. You really can.
The Pattern and What’s Included
When you download the Sundae Sweater pattern, here’s what you’re getting. The full, written pattern with all stitch counts and instructions for all sizes. Detailed notes on yarn selection and substitution so you can make confident choices whether you’re using our suggested yarn or something from your stash. A clear materials list so there are no surprises. Step-by-step guidance on seaming the sleeves. Notes on blocking and finishing, because finishing really does make such a difference to a final result and we want yours to look absolutely wonderful.
The pattern is formatted for easy reading, with a clean layout and clear section breaks. Whether you’re a print-it-out knitter or a tablet-propped-on-the-sofa knitter, it should work beautifully for you.
Why We Design Beginner Patterns
We get asked sometimes why we focus so much on beginner-friendly designs rather than pushing toward more technically complex pieces. The honest answer is that we genuinely love this end of the knitting world. There is something magical about being the pattern that helps someone knit their first sweater. That finished object means so much more than just a piece of knitwear. It’s proof of something. It’s the moment someone realizes they can make things — real, beautiful, wearable things — with their own hands. That’s extraordinary.
We also think there’s a real gap in the market for beginner patterns that don’t look beginner. So much of what gets labeled as “easy” is visually quite plain or unfinished-looking, as though simplicity has to come at the cost of beauty. We refuse to accept that. The Sundae Sweater is proof that you don’t have to choose. It’s simple to knit and genuinely lovely to look at, and we’re so proud of that combination.
Beyond all of that, we also deeply believe that bringing more people into knitting is a good and worthwhile thing. Knitting is slow, it’s tactile, it’s creative, and it’s deeply calming. In a world that moves fast and asks a lot of us, sitting down with yarn and needles and the quiet repetition of stitching something into existence is genuinely restorative. If a well-written, beautiful beginner pattern is someone’s doorway into that, then making those patterns is very much worth our time.
How to Get Your Copy
The Sundae Sweater pattern is available now, and we are so excited for you to get your hands on it. Head to the link in our bio or find it on our website alongside the rest of our pattern collection. If you’ve got questions before you buy — about sizing, yarn, technique, anything at all — please don’t hesitate to drop us a message. We love hearing from you and we always try to get back to everyone.
And when you cast on? Please share your progress with us. Seriously, there is nothing we love more than seeing our patterns come to life in other people’s hands, in all their different yarns and colors and living spaces. Tag us, send us a message, share your finished object when you get there. Every single one makes our day.
One Last Thing
Summer holidays have a funny way of giving you back something you forgot you had — a slower pace, a little more imagination, a reason to pick up a project just for the joy of it. The Sundae Sweater came out of that feeling, and we hope that when you knit it, some of that feeling comes through in every stitch.
It’s sweet, it’s simple, it’s made with love — and it’s so ready to be yours.
Hiii, Sundae Sweater. We’ve been waiting for you. 🌸🐻💕
Happy knitting, and happy summer. We’ll see you in the finished objects.
