"Felicia Cardigan" - Cardigan Knitting Pattern For Girls in MillaMia Naturally Soft Merino

Felicia Cardigan Knitting Pattern for Girls – MillaMia Naturally Soft Merino

The Felicia Cardigan is a charming girls' cardigan knitting pattern published by MillaMia, designed to be worked in MillaMia Naturally Soft Merino sport-weight yarn. This pattern is rated Experienced / Advanced and delivers a high-impact, deliberately mismatched colourwork aesthetic that makes it a standout piece for any young wardrobe. The design is clever in its restraint: rather than covering the entire garment in stranded colourwork, the bold patterned sections are concentrated on the left front panel and the right sleeve, creating a playful asymmetry that feels modern and eye-catching.

What Is Being Made

The finished project is a seamed girls' cardigan knitted from the bottom up. It features a structured shape with a button band, and its distinctive visual appeal comes from the contrast between plain stockinette sections and the colourwork panels. The asymmetric placement of the patterned sections gives the cardigan a fun, fashion-forward look while keeping the overall knitting workload manageable. The pattern is available as a downloadable PDF and is sized to fit a range of girls' sizes.

Techniques Used

• Bottom-up construction: The cardigan pieces are worked from the cast-on hem upward, a traditional approach that gives knitters familiar shaping landmarks such as armhole and neckline decreases worked in sequence.
• Seamed construction: Individual pieces — fronts, back, and sleeves — are knitted flat and then joined using seaming techniques such as mattress stitch, producing a neat, structured finish with clean edges.
• Stranded colourwork: The patterned sections on the left front and right sleeve are worked using the stranded (Fair Isle-style) technique, where two or more yarn colours are carried across the row, with the unused colour floated or woven in at the back of the fabric. This creates the characteristic dense, slightly thicker fabric associated with traditional colourwork knitting.
• Worked in the round: Certain elements of the pattern — most likely the button band or neckband — are worked on a circular needle, producing a smooth, seamless edging finish.

Stitches Used

• Stockinette stitch (st st): The primary stitch used across the body and sleeves, creating a smooth, flat fabric surface. Tension is measured over stockinette stitch at 25 stitches and 34 rows to a 10 cm / 4 in square.
• Ribbing: Used for the hem, cuffs, and button bands to provide elasticity and a neat, professional edge — typical of bottom-up cardigan construction in the MillaMia design style.
• Stranded colourwork stitches: Within the patterned panels, stitches are worked in stockinette while managing multiple yarn colours simultaneously, following a charted or written colourwork motif.

Materials

The pattern calls for MillaMia Naturally Soft Merino, a sport-weight yarn sold in 50 g / 1¾ oz balls. The recommended colourway uses Lilac Blossom (123) as the main colour (M), requiring 2(3:3:3:4) balls depending on size. Contrast colours include Seaside (161) (two balls), plus one ball each of Scarlet (140), Midnight (101), and Daisy Yellow (142). MillaMia Naturally Soft Merino is a 100% merino wool yarn prized for its softness against children's skin, its stitch definition, and its wide palette of vibrant, clearly contrasting shades — qualities that are especially important for a colourwork design like this one.

The pattern recommends using a pair each of 3 mm (US 2) and 3.25 mm (US 3) knitting needles for the flat-knitted sections, along with a circular 3 mm (US 2) needle for the edging or band sections worked in the round.

Design Notes and Hints

MillaMia specifically advises knitters to choose bright, strongly contrasting colours