Growing Garden Cardigan. Photo © Purl Soho
Growing Garden Cardigan is a free baby and toddler knitting pattern designed by Sandi Rosner for Purl Soho. This cheerful top-down cardigan combines a simple background color with little rows of colorful textured dots that look like tiny flowers scattered across the fabric.
The clever part is the colorwork: simple slip stitches mean you work with only one color per row. That makes this little cardigan an inviting project for knitters who want to try colorwork without juggling multiple yarn colors at the same time.
Growing Garden Cardigan Pattern Details
- Designer: Sandi Rosner
- Publisher: Purl Soho
- Craft: Knitting
- Category: Baby and toddler cardigan
- Pattern availability: Free
- Sizes: Newborn, 6–12 months, 12–18 months, 18–24 months
- Yarn weight: DK / Light Worsted
- Suggested yarn: Purl Soho Cotton Chirp DK and Cotton Chirp DK Minis
- Needles: 4 mm (US 6)
- Gauge: 22 stitches and 40 rows = 4 inches in Dotted Stripe Pattern
- Construction: Top down
- Techniques: Slip-stitch colorwork, knitting flat and in the round
- Language: English
Easy Slip-Stitch Colorwork
The Growing Garden Cardigan gets its playful appearance from Purl Soho's Dotted Stripe Pattern. Small contrast-color bumps appear in staggered rows against the main background color, creating the cardigan's garden-inspired look.
Instead of traditional stranded colorwork with two yarns worked across the same row, this design uses slip stitches so that you only need to work with one color at a time. Purl Soho specifically recommends the project as a gentle introduction to colorwork knitting.
Sizes from Newborn to 24 Months
The free pattern includes four sizes: Newborn, 6–12 months, 12–18 months and 18–24 months.
Finished chest circumferences are approximately 17 (19½, 21, 23½) inches, with about 1–2 inches of positive ease built into the sizing.
This range makes the pattern suitable for everything from a tiny newborn cardigan to a colorful sweater for an active toddler.
Yarn and Needles
The original cardigan uses Purl Soho Cotton Chirp DK for the main color and Cotton Chirp DK Minis for the contrasting colored dots.
Both are 100% Peruvian Pima cotton yarns in the DK / Light Worsted range. The main color requires approximately 230 (300, 380, 445) yards, depending on size, plus smaller quantities of four contrast colors.
The pattern uses 4 mm (US 6) circular needles and double-pointed needles, or the needle size required to achieve the specified gauge.
How the Growing Garden Cardigan Is Constructed
The cardigan is worked from the top down. You begin at the collar and work the yoke and body flat in one piece.
At the armholes, the sleeve stitches are placed on hold while the body continues down to the lower edge. The held sleeve stitches are then returned to the needles and the sleeves are worked in the round down to the cuffs.
Garter-stitch details at the collar, hem, cuffs and button bands provide a simple textured frame around the colorful dotted stripes.
A Great Way to Play with Color
The small amounts of contrast yarn required for the dotted stripes make this design particularly fun for experimenting with color combinations. You can keep the background neutral and choose bright accents, or use a colorful main shade with softer contrasting dots.
Because each contrast color appears in relatively small amounts, the design may also be useful for compatible DK-weight leftovers, provided you can maintain the pattern gauge and choose yarns suitable for the finished garment.
What You'll Need
- DK / Light Worsted yarn for the main color
- Four small quantities of contrasting DK yarn
- 4 mm (US 6) circular knitting needles
- 4 mm (US 6) double-pointed needles or your preferred method for small circumferences
- Stitch holders or scrap yarn
- A stitch marker
- 4 or 5 small buttons, depending on size
Get the Free Growing Garden Cardigan Pattern
The complete Growing Garden Cardigan by Sandi Rosner is available free from the original publisher, Purl Soho. Their pattern page includes the full instructions, sizing, materials, photos and additional knitting guidance.
Get the Free Growing Garden Cardigan Pattern at Purl Soho
Pattern availability was checked when this article was updated. Availability on external websites may change over time.