"Lilian Jacket" - Jacket Beginners Knitting Pattern For Girls - Jacket Knitting Pattern For Girls in MillaMia Naturally Soft Merino

Lilian Jacket – Beginner Girls' Knitting Pattern in MillaMia Naturally Soft Merino

The Lilian Jacket is a charming, beginner-friendly knitted jacket designed for girls, available as a downloadable PDF pattern from MillaMia. Worked entirely in garter stitch with minimal shaping, this sweet little jacket features a decorative two-colour border and a delicate ribbon tie at the neckline, making it an ideal first garment project for those new to knitting. Despite its simplicity, the finished result is polished and versatile — the pattern notes even suggest it looks great worn as a cropped, fitted style on older girls.

What Is Being Made

The Lilian Jacket is a lightweight, casual girls' jacket knitted in MillaMia Naturally Soft Merino yarn. It features a contrasting colour border integrated directly into the knitting — rather than sewn on separately — and is finished with a ribbon tie approximately 46cm/18in long and around 1.5cm wide. The jacket is sized to fit a range of ages and includes a sleeve with a foldback cuff detail.

Construction Techniques

• Bottom-up construction: The jacket is worked from the lower edge upward, a logical and beginner-friendly approach that allows knitters to establish the fabric and border before progressing to shaping.
• Worked flat: All pieces are knitted back and forth on straight needles rather than in the round, keeping the technique accessible for those not yet comfortable with circular knitting.
• Seamed finishing: The individual pieces — body sections and sleeves — are completed separately and then joined using seams, a traditional construction method that gives the garment structure and a neat, professional finish.
• Integrated border: The contrast-colour border is knitted in as part of the fabric rather than picked up or sewn on afterwards. The pattern specifically advises knitters to twist the yarn on the wrong side when changing colours for the border, a simple but important technique to prevent gaps and keep the fabric tidy.
• Foldback cuffs: The sleeves are designed with a cuff that folds back, adding a neat decorative detail without requiring additional techniques.

Stitches Used

• Garter stitch: The entire jacket is worked in garter stitch — knitting every row on both the right and wrong sides. This is one of the most fundamental and forgiving stitches in knitting, producing a squishy, reversible fabric with a ridged texture. It lies flat naturally, which makes it especially suitable for a beginner project as it requires no additional edge treatments to prevent curling.
• Minimal shaping: The pattern uses only basic increases and decreases where necessary, keeping the stitch vocabulary simple and the construction straightforward.

Materials

• Yarn: MillaMia Naturally Soft Merino in Lilac Blossom (123) as the main colour (M), requiring 3(4:5:5:6:6) × 50g/1¾oz balls depending on size. The contrast colour (C) is Storm (102), requiring 1(1:1:1:2:2) balls. MillaMia Naturally Soft Merino is a sport weight yarn, making it lightweight and ideal for a children's garment that needs to be soft against the skin.
• Needles: A pair each of 3mm (US 2) and 3.25mm (US 3) straight knitting needles are required. The smaller needle is typically used for ribbing or border sections, while the larger needle is used for the main body fabric.
• Ribbon: A length of ribbon approximately 46cm/18in long and 1.5cm wide is used for the tie detail at the neckline, adding a pretty, feminine finishing touch.

Suggested Colourways

In addition to the main Lilac Blossom (123) and Storm (102) colourway shown, the pattern suggests several alternative colour combinations using MillaMia Naturally Soft Merino shades. These include pairings featuring Fuchsia (143), Daisy Yellow (124),