Easton in Berroco - Downloadable PDF

Easton Cardigan Knitting Pattern by Berroco Design Team

The Easton cardigan is a relaxed, cozy knitting pattern designed by the Berroco Design Team and featured in Book #417. Rated intermediate in difficulty, this pattern produces a classic, everyday cardigan with thoughtful construction details including integrated pockets, seamless body construction, and set-in sleeves. It is knitted in chunky-weight yarn at a generous gauge, making it a satisfying and relatively quick project for knitters ready to move beyond the basics.

What Is Being Made

Easton is a women's cardigan worked in a straightforward Garter Stitch fabric. It features a relaxed silhouette with 2–4 inches of positive ease, making it ideal as a comfortable layering piece. The finished bust measurement ranges from 35 to 62 inches across ten sizes, and the length ranges from 21½ to 24½ inches depending on size. The sample shown is knitted in size 35 inches. The cardigan includes two integrated front pockets, adding both style and function to this wearable everyday design.

Construction and Techniques

Easton uses a smart, efficient construction approach that minimizes seaming and keeps the knitting enjoyable throughout:

• One-piece body construction: The body is cast on and worked flat in a single piece all the way to the underarms, at which point the work is divided for the back and two front panels separately. This reduces side seams and ensures a clean, continuous fabric.
• Integrated pocket construction: Pockets are created early in the body by slipping live stitches onto waste yarn to be worked later as pocket linings, while new stitches are cast on using the backwards-loop method to maintain the stitch count. This technique creates neat, flush patch-style pockets set directly into the fabric.
• Sleeves worked in the round: The sleeves are knitted in the round using double-pointed needles up to the underarm, after which the sleeve caps are worked back and forth in rows to shape the cap for setting into the armhole.
• Circular needle techniques: Both 16-inch and 29-inch circular needles in size 11 (8.00 mm) are used throughout the body and sleeves, with a smaller 29-inch circular needle in size 10 (6.00 mm) used for finishing or edging details.
• Stitch markers: Four stitch markers are used to track key construction points such as side seams and pocket placement.
• Waste yarn holds: Stitches are held on waste yarn during pocket placement, a standard technique that keeps live stitches accessible for later finishing.

Stitches Used

The primary stitch pattern throughout Easton is beautifully simple:

• Garter Stitch: Every row is knitted, whether working flat or in specific flat sections of the sleeves. Garter stitch creates a squishy, reversible, horizontally ridged fabric with excellent drape and elasticity. It is particularly well-suited to chunky-weight yarns, as the texture adds visual interest without requiring complex stitch patterns. The gauge for this pattern is 11 stitches and 22 rows to 4 inches in Garter Stitch.

Because Garter Stitch is the sole stitch pattern, the intermediate difficulty of Easton comes primarily from its construction techniques — managing multiple needle sizes, working in the round, shaping sleeve caps, and executing the pocket placement — rather than from complex colorwork or stitch manipulation.

Materials

Yarn

The pattern calls for Berroco Gingham™, a chunky-weight yarn sold in 100-gram balls. The colorway shown in the sample is #3106 Jasmine. Depending on size, the pattern requires 3 to 6 balls. Berroco Gingham is a proprietary yarn from Berroco, Inc., and the pattern recommends using the specified yarn to ensure accurate results.

Needles and Notions

• 16-inch circular needle, size 11 (8.00