Note: links do not work any more. I will fix at some time in the future.

This sweater is inspired by a favorite vintage sweater that my grandmother bought years ago on a (for her) luxury clothes-shopping trip in New York City. The original sweater is hand-knit and both the original and this remake are very simple, with knitted-in button bands and shaping only through the cables on the front.

Note #1: the neck for this is quite high, as my mother likes high and small necklines. If you are a person who does not, I’d recommend beginning the neck a few rows lower down and working the same number of rows more plain at the top of the fronts before beginning the shoulder shaping.

Note #2: the instructions do not include button holes! Obviously, you should include buttonholes on your right front. I used simple k2tog, YO eyelet buttonholes and spaced them in alignment with the snake cable closest to the button band, placing them at the same point in the cable repeat each time, but skipping a repeat between buttonholes. It worked out to about every 2.5”.

Note #3: The pattern only includes charts for the cables. If you want written-out instructions for the three cables, they are in the Barbara Walker treasuries:

Snake cable: not actually in there, but it’s a four-stitch version of “Wave Cable or Ribbon Stitch” (A Treasury of Knitting Patterns p. 245)
Bottom of middle cable: “Four Stitch Cable Crossed Every Fourth Row” (A Treasury of Knitting Patterns p. 241)
Honeycomb cable: “Chain Cable or Double Ribbon Stitch” (A Treasury of Knitting Patterns p. 246)
Top of middle cable: “Aran Diamond and Bobble” (A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns p. 186)