Woodland Cardigan - Knitting Pattern for Women in Tahki Yarns Tiburon by Tahki Yarns

Woodland Cardigan Knitting Pattern for Women – Sandi Rosner for Tahki Yarns

The Woodland Cardigan is an elegant, open-front women's cardigan designed by Sandi Rosner and published by Tahki Yarns. Worked in the brand's own Tahki Yarns Tiburon, a lightweight DK-weight yarn, this intermediate-level knitting pattern produces a relaxed, generously overlapping cardigan with a wide shawl collar and wide cuffs. The design is available as a downloadable PDF and is sized to fit a wide range of bodies, from XS through 4X.

What Is Being Made

The finished garment is a women's cardigan with no closure, designed to be worn loosely with a generous front overlap. Key finished measurements include a bust circumference ranging from 42¼ inches (XS) to 74¼ inches (4X) and a length ranging from 23 inches (XS) to 26 inches (3X/4X). Distinctive design details include:

• A wide shawl collar picked up and worked around the front and neck edges
• Wide cuffs created by picking up stitches from the sleeve ends
• Shaped lower front corners using German Short Rows for a polished, intentional hem line
• An open, drapey silhouette suited to relaxed, layered wear

Construction and Techniques

The Woodland Cardigan is worked flat, meaning each piece is knitted back and forth in rows rather than in the round. The back and two fronts are knitted as separate pieces, then the shoulders are joined using the Three-Needle Bind-Off technique, which creates a neat, sturdy seam directly on the needles without a separate seaming step. Side seams and sleeve seams are then sewn together.

A notable construction feature is the use of German Short Rows to shape the lower front corners. German Short Rows use a Double Stitch (DS) method: with the yarn held in front, the next stitch is slipped to the right-hand needle and the yarn is pulled up and over to create a double loop, which is later knitted together to close the short row without gaps or holes. This technique gives a cleaner result than traditional wrap-and-turn short rows and is particularly well-suited to the lace fabric used throughout the body.

The shawl collar and cuffs are added after the main body is assembled by picking up stitches along the finished edges — a technique that integrates these wide finishing elements seamlessly into the garment structure.

Shoulders are finished with Three-Needle Bind-Off, a method where live stitches from two needles are bound off simultaneously, joining two pieces of fabric with a tidy, minimal seam.

Stitches and Stitch Patterns

The Woodland Cardigan features two primary stitch patterns that work together to create visual texture and movement:

• Lace Pattern – The main body fabric is worked in a 12-stitch repeat lace pattern (with adjusted stitch counts for certain sizes on the Right and Left Fronts). The lace is constructed using yarn overs (yo), ssk (slip, slip, knit), and k2tog (knit two together) decreases to form elegant, symmetrical eyelets. Right-side rows build the lace motif while wrong-side rows are worked with a simple knit-one, purl-to-last-stitch-knit-one border, maintaining tidy selvedge edges throughout.
• Garter Stitch – Used as a contrasting texture, garter stitch is formed by knitting every stitch on every row. It creates a firm, ridged fabric that lies flat without curling, making it ideal for borders, cuffs, and collar sections. The gauge in garter stitch is notably different from the lace gauge, so the pattern specifies separate gauges for each.
• S2KP (Centered Double Decrease) – This special stitch is used within the lace pattern. It is worked by slipping two stitches together knitwise, knitting one stitch, then passing the two slipped stitches over. The result is a vertical, centered decrease that maintains the symmetry of the lace motif.

Because the lace and garter stitch