Books
It’s Here! Field Guide No. 28: Renewal
Did you make it to our Zoom party to celebrate the launch of MDK Field Guide No. 28: Renewal.? Our special guest was designer Norah Gaughan. Watch the recording here.
Can you feel it in the air? The great season for knitters is here, the climate we love best: sweater weather.
And in early fall, a particular type of sweater calls to us: the cardigan.
For these exciting early days of sweater weather, we turned to a designer who has mastered the form, who designs sweaters—and especially cardigans—that are a knitter’s dream to make.
That’s right: Norah Gaughan.
For more than 30 years, Norah Gaughan has held knitters in the palm of her hand. She’s a genius of construction, a master of cables, and a fearless innovator. She also understands the craving for simplicity—in a knitting pattern and in our wardrobes. The five designs she has given to this Field Guide—three of them cardigans—are an invitation to play in her world.
Order your copy of Field Guide No. 28: Renewal right here. It’s available in a print + ebook edition and an ebook-only edition.
The New Lookbook Is Here
The yarns for this Field Guide are really beautiful, and we want you to get to them as easily as possible. Thus: a brand-new, shoppable lookbook for you.
Jump right in, right here.
The Projects
Let’s take a quick stroll through the projects of MDK Field Guide No. 28: Renewal.
Pattern names (in vermilion) link to the pattern page for each design, which has sizing, finished measurements, and yarn information.
Bolin Cardigan
As lush a design as we have ever offered, Bolin is simplicity itself: worked from the bottom up, with no shaping. This is a gently cropped silhouette, so great when layered over a favorite top.
The sleeves are wide and decorated with a soft cable. They’re picked up from the armholes and knit down, in the round. Just two buttons, which you can glimpse in the photo above.
(The yarns: Felted Tweed and Kidsilk Haze, both by Rowan, held together throughout, to create the sort of fabric that feels like a hug.)
JACOBS Cardigan
With a happy medium length, Jacobs is a showcase of Norah Gaughan’s superb skill with texture. Simple knits and purls keep the knitting interesting and hypnotic.
The construction is simple, from the hem up, with a length that skims the hips. No buttons, just a lapel that rolls gently inside.
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A forever sweater, for sure.
(The yarn: MDK’s brand-new yarn, Jane!)
ADDAMs Cardigan
This is Norah Gaughan at her most comforting—and spectacular.
Addams is a magical cardigan that took our breath away when Norah showed us what she was up to.
Addams stars long columns of simple, narrow cables. The knitting is hypnotic and rhythmic.
This is the magic that happens when you combine a DK-weight wool with a strand of silk/mohair.
The construction shows Norah’s sophisticated understanding of garment design.
Addams is the cardigan that will be our best friend—forever.
(The yarns: Felted Tweed and Kidsilk Haze, both by Rowan, held together throughout.)
Jacobs Hat
Here we have a knit-purl texture similar to that of the Jacobs Cardigan, in a quick project to get started with Norah’s new collection.
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Even a small design shows Norah’s ability to integrate a pattern into a particular construction. So clever!
(The yarn: MDK’s brand-new yarn, Jane!)
Austen Mitts
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So characteristic of Norah’s endless fascination with cables, the Austen Mitts have a cable that splits into a thumbhole, elegant and simple.
(The yarn: Felted Tweed—one skein makes the pair.)
Please join Norah, and us, and all the Janes—for a fantastic season of sweater knitting.
More fun to come! Whee!
You have done it again. Another perfect collection of patterns and A list designer. Big fan of Norah’s forever and ready to knit my way through the Field Guide. Already have Bolin yarns ready to start then on to Jacobs. KUDOS.
Ooooooh… everything I love! Norah (HUGEST of huge fans right here! Yuge I tell ya!) beautiful cardis (Bolin & Jacobs are SO calling to me as a knit gift for my M-I-L which I will, of course, inherit when she is done with it, mwah hahahaha) and beautiful ranges of colours (b-e-a-U-tiful!).
I jussst received my very 1st order from the MDK store (5 or 6 colours of Lotulopi & a shawl’s worth of Love Story… & O… M… G… I am in love! Thank you thank you thank you Ann & Kay & DJ & everybody!) so I’ll have to wait a bit for my budget to recover, but…
Jane Jacobs, I’m looking at you girl!
Can’t wait for the Zoom!
I’ll just say it here…Norah is the GOAT! Who can resist her designs? I’m ordering now.
The mitts are a very interesting design. They are a fun and innovative pattern
I really enjoyed this pattern. I did use Jane – one skein even though I have a very large stash of felted tweed. I love the new yarn Thanks MDK for always presenting something new and fun !
I am in love! Not only is Jane a beautiful yarn but this Field Guide has one of my other all time favorite yarns, Felted Tweed. And those designs, truly gorgeous! More projects for my queue. And I am still in love with Nora’s handspun cardigan.
The textures are swoony – but I loathe, abhor, and despise dropped shoulders. They make me resemble a Hobbit. I know they’re easier on the pieced-sweater-averse, but nope.
SO TIMELY. SO SNUGGLY. SO APPROACHABLE. WONDERFUL
Amen to dropped shoulders, Nancy. I am just too short-waisted. Raglans are my friend. As well as set in sleeves which, thank goodness, we can now do contiguously. But I do plan to make the hat! And maybe employ some of Norah’s details in other projects.
If you have a simple sweater pattern with shaping, shoulders & sizing that work for you & that uses a similar yarn weight/stitch guage, adapt that pattern
to use the knit/purl patterning of the Jacobs sweater on the sweater shaping of your chosen one…
Voila! Best of ALL worlds!
Spectacular. Gaughan delivers yet again!
Simply lovely.
I’m another that kept muttering – ooooh, lovely sweater; dammit, dropped shoulders – as I looked at the patterns. It’s just not a style silhouette that works for me.
But I’m going to examine them a bit more, search for raglan patterns that might work and then see what sort of Frankenstein hacking fun I can have.
I could run the Bolin sleeve cable right up to the neckline of a simple raglan sweater.
Or that same simple raglan could have Jacobs’ texture.
And somewhere I have a raglan pattern with a shawl collar that would showcase Addams’ cables really well.
Might be time for me to purchase a Field Guide!
And
And I love the yarns selected – they are all yarns I want to try (especially holding Kidsilk Haze with something).
Somehow I hit “post comment” in the middle of typing!
Could someone PLEASE tell what is the name of the pattern for that multi colored sweater Norah is wearing?!?!? I know I’ve seen this before and maybe even read about her and the sweater but my brain can’t seem to dig that memory up.
Thanks in advance for coming to my aid!!!
I love her patterns – what is the seater she is wearing in the photo