Posy Row · Handmade 1980s-90s Floral Intarsia Cardigan
Cotton · handmade intarsia knit · plastic buttons · 1980s-90s· 29cm length flat · approx. 4-6 years, kids · excellent condition
Someone sat down with four colours of cotton yarn and enough patience to knit each little flower in on its own, dusty pink, cornflower blue, pale yellow, sage green, scattered across a cream ground. It is the kind of decision that takes three times as long as a plain jumper and looks, from a distance, like it took no time at all.
No tag survives to name a maker or a date, which is typical of a piece knitted at home rather than bought. The technique, intarsia, and the pastel palette against cotton place it loosely in the 1980s to 90s, when this style of scattered floral colourwork was everywhere in children's knitwear, both shop-bought and homemade.
The body is worked in a textured seed stitch rather than plain stockinette, which gives the florals a bit of relief instead of sitting flat. The button band, collar, and cuffs are all finished in garter stitch, small cream plastic buttons matching the ground so they barely announce themselves. Long sleeves, round neckline, a relaxed, slightly boxy cut typical of hand-knitting for a growing child.
Material
Cotton, plastic buttons.
Care
Hand wash in cool water and dry flat, out of direct sun to keep the pastels from fading. Cool iron only if needed, avoiding direct contact with the buttons.
More on looking after vintage pieces in our care guide.
Size
Measured flat: 29cm length flat, 41cm across the bust and 38cm at the waist laid flat, 22cm sleeve length with an 11.5cm bicep and a 9cm cuff, 7cm neckline depth. Reads as roughly 4-6 years.
Our size guide explains how vintage sizing is read here.
Condition
Excellent, with one small loose thread at a cuff edge that's worth a trim but nothing structural. The colourwork is bright and unfaded, no holes, no pilling of note, no sign of hard wear.
Our condition lexicon explains the grades we use.
Before it reaches you
Someone loved this before you did, and I try to honour that properly. Each piece is hand washed, or cleaned in the way that the fabric permits, then steamed until it softens and straightens and feels newly attended to. Wherever a button was missing, it has been replaced with a vintage one from my long-kept collection. Wherever a hem had given way, I fix it by hand. By the time it leaves this room it is genuinely clean, pressed, whole, and looked over one final time before I let myself believe it is ready. Not restored. Not made new. Just returned to a state where it can be loved again, by someone who was not there the first time.
Four colours of yarn and a lot of patience went into this one, flower by flower, the kind of project a person only takes on for someone specific. It has the slightly uneven charm of a piece made by hand rather than machine, no two flowers landing in quite the same spot twice, which is exactly what makes it worth keeping.