Classic Elite Yarns Cutie Pie Cardigan Knitting Pattern

Cutie Pie Lace Cardigan by Classic Elite Yarns

Garment Overview

Cutie Pie is a sophisticated double-stranded, open-front lace cardigan featuring an attached scarf collar. This knit design combines delicate lace patterning with subtle textural elements, creating an elegant layering piece suitable for intermediate to advanced knitters. The cardigan is worked flat from the bottom up and finished with seamed construction, allowing for precise shaping and professional finishing details.

What Is Being Made

This pattern produces a fitted lace cardigan with the following specifications: available in six sizes ranging from XS to 2XL to fit bust measurements of 32 to 52 inches, with finished length ranging from 28½ to 30¾ inches depending on size. The cardigan features an intentional 5–8 inch opening at the center front, creating a graceful, flowing silhouette. The attached scarf collar adds a distinctive design element that frames the neckline while providing additional styling versatility.

Techniques Used

The Cutie Pie cardigan employs several intermediate to advanced knitting techniques that contribute to its refined appearance:

• Bottom-up construction: The garment is built from the lower edge upward, allowing knitters to try on and adjust fit as they progress
• Worked flat: All pieces are knit on straight needles in rows rather than in the round, facilitating lace pattern placement and seaming
• Lace knitting: Open, decorative patterning created through strategic yarn overs and decreases produces the signature delicate aesthetic
• Seamed assembly: Individual pieces are knit separately and then sewn together, providing structure and allowing for precise finishing

Stitches and Stitch Patterns

The pattern incorporates specialized stitch techniques that create visual interest and texture:

• Baby Cable stitch: A five-stitch motif worked over four rows that creates a subtle twisted rope effect. This stitch uses cable needle techniques, slipping stitches to hold them while working others, then knitting the held stitches in a different order to create the characteristic cable twist
• Lace Panel stitch: A fifteen-stitch lace pattern worked over eight rows that forms the primary decorative element. This stitch combines yarn overs (which create intentional holes for the open lace effect) with paired decreases (k2tog and skp) to maintain stitch count while creating directional shaping. The pattern includes bobble stitches for textural variation
• Make Bobble (MB): A decorative three-dimensional embellishment created by working multiple stitches into a single stitch, turning the work, purling, turning again, and then decreasing the stitches back to one. This technique adds dimensional texture within the lace panels
• Yarn overs and decreases: Fundamental lace techniques that create the open, airy quality. Yarn overs add stitches and create holes, while decreases (k2tog for right-leaning and skp for left-leaning) remove stitches and create directional shaping

Materials

Cutie Pie is designed to be worked in Silky Alpaca Lace by Classic Elite Yarns, a luxurious blend composed of 70% alpaca and 30% silk. This fiber combination provides exceptional softness, breathability, and subtle sheen characteristic of alpaca blended with the smooth drape of silk. The yarn is supplied in 50-gram balls, each containing approximately 440 yards of lace-weight yarn. Yardage requirements range from 7 balls (3,080 yards) for size XS to 12 balls (5,280 yards) for size 2XL, depending on the finished size selected. Knitters will require appropriate needles for lace-weight yarn to achieve proper gauge and stitch definition, along with a cable needle for executing the Baby Cable stitch sections.

Design Credit and Skill Level

Cutie Pie was designed by Laura Matthews and is rated as an Experienced skill level project. This classification reflects the intermediate to advanced techniques required, including lace pattern reading and execution, cable stitch work, and seamed garment assembly. The pattern originally appeared in Beloved 9250, a printed collection of designs from Classic Elite Yarns.