A letter from Rose · Co-founder of Rose & Mabel

Stowe, Vermont · September 2026

A note from Rose, on the one warm thing I would not be without in October

A letter from the founder

Thirty-Five Years of Keeping Women Warm. The Cardigan Is the One I Would Give You First.

Thirty-seven of them on the shelf, all knit to the same rules. If you are only going to add one warm thing to your closet this autumn, I would make it a cardigan — and I will tell you exactly why.

Rose Co-founder of Rose & Mabel Stowe, Vermont September 2026 6 min read

My sister and I opened Rose & Mabel in 1991, on a street in Stowe where the snow starts early and does not think about leaving until April. We had one rule then, and it has not changed since: warm should never mean shapeless.

It is September, and the mornings have already turned — here, and in Ohio and Colorado and the parts of Georgia where nobody will admit to owning a coat. The first properly cold morning always arrives a few weeks before anyone is ready for it.

And here is the thing about that particular stretch of the year. It is not cold. It is cold, then warm, then cold again, four times between breakfast and the evening news. A pullover is a decision you make once at seven in the morning and then live with. A cardigan is one you can change your mind about all day long.

That is why, of everything on our shelves, the cardigan is the one I would put in your hands first. There are six things I would tell you about ours, in the order I would point them out.

1

A cardigan adjusts. A pullover does not.

Open at the kitchen table, buttoned on the porch, off over the back of a chair by two o'clock and back on at dusk. You are not committing to one temperature for the whole day. It is the reason a cardigan ends up on the hook by the door and stays there all season, while the pullover stays in the drawer.

“It has not made it back to the closet once since it arrived. It lives on the hook by the back door.”

JW

★★★★★

“It has not made it back to the closet once since it arrived. It lives on the hook by the back door.”

Janet W., Columbus, OH

Verified buyer

2

Sleeves that are properly finished

The cuff is knitted in, not cut and hemmed, so there is no raw edge to fray and nothing to unravel at the wrist. It matters more on a cardigan than on anything else you own, because a cardigan gets pushed up your forearms twenty times a day.

“I shove the sleeves up to do the dishes every single evening and the cuffs still sit flat. That is unheard of.”

PH

★★★★★

“I shove the sleeves up to do the dishes every single evening and the cuffs still sit flat. That is unheard of.”

Patricia H., Boise, ID

Verified buyer

3

Real wool that holds the heat

A brushed wool blend, knit densely enough to stand on a porch in the wind. Acrylic feels warm in a heated shop and turns clammy on the walk to the car, because it has nowhere to put the moisture. Wool moves it. That is the whole trick.

“Warm without being stifling. I wore it indoors all day and never once had to take it off because I was too hot.”

EM

★★★★★

“Warm without being stifling. I wore it indoors all day and never once had to take it off because I was too hot.”

Eileen M., Asheville, NC

Verified buyer

4

Buttons that do not give up

The first thing to fail on a cheap cardigan is never the knit. It is a button, somewhere around the second week of December. Ours are real wood, sewn on with a shank so the buttonhole has somewhere to sit, and there is a spare stitched inside the hem.

“Two winters in and every button is exactly where it started. I have not needed the spare.”

LT

★★★★★

“Two winters in and every button is exactly where it started. I have not needed the spare.”

Lorraine T., Scranton, PA

Verified buyer

5

It keeps its shape on the hook

A cardigan spends its life hanging, not folded, and cheap ones grow shoulders like a coat hanger within a month. Deep two-by-two ribbing at the cuff and hem and a proper set shoulder are what stop that. Ours hangs by the door all season and still closes the way it did in October.

“No stretched-out shoulders, no droop at the hem. It looks the same in March as it did in October.”

DS

★★★★★

“No stretched-out shoulders, no droop at the hem. It looks the same in March as it did in October.”

Donna S., Bangor, ME

Verified buyer

6

Thirty-seven of them, S through 5XL, one price

Not one cardigan in seven colours. Thirty-seven patterns, each with its own yoke, and the chart re-worked for every size so the colourwork lands where it should across the chest. Nothing costs more at 3XL than it does at Small.

“I ordered the 4XL expecting the usual sack. It is cut like the small one, just bigger. I ordered a second.”

RG

★★★★★

“I ordered the 4XL expecting the usual sack. It is cut like the small one, just bigger. I ordered a second.”

Rhonda G., Tulsa, OK

Verified buyer

Our cardigans, against the ones you have been buying

You can find a cardigan for sixty dollars almost anywhere, and most women I know have two of them in a drawer. I have bought a great many myself over the years, to see what we were up against. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.

Most $60 cardigans

Acrylic, sold to you as wool

A button pulls loose by December

Grows hanger shoulders within a month

Cuffs stretch and never come back

Pills at the elbows after one wash

Stops at XL, then an apology

Rose & Mabel

Real wool knit that holds the heat in

Wood buttons sewn with a shank, plus a spare

Keeps its shape hanging by the door

Deep ribbing that still grips next winter

Softens instead of pilling

Thirty-seven patterns, S through 5XL

A cardigan is the only warm thing you can change your mind about halfway through the day. That is the whole reason it is the one I would give you first.

Why the cardigans are 70% OFF this month

This month Rose & Mabel turns thirty-five. Same street, same two sisters, same table in the back room where we still wrap every parcel by hand.

To mark it we did something we have never done: we put the whole cardigan shelf — all thirty-seven of them — on one anniversary run at close to what they cost us to knit. One run. Not a season, not a rolling sale.

When a pattern sells out of your size, that is the end of that one. The cardigans go back to $144.00, and the anniversary does not come round again.

35th Anniversary Run · Limited to this month

10%

extra on 2

15%

extra on 3

20%

extra on 3

Stacked discounts apply automatically at checkout and can be combined across collections. At four cardigans that is $46.40 each. We make almost nothing at that price, and that is on purpose.

35

Years on the same street

4.8★

Across 1,450+ reviews

37

Patterns, S to 5XL

30

Days to change your mind

CR

★★★★★

“Two cardigans on my porch in three days, wrapped in tissue with a note written by hand. I have never had a parcel from anywhere arrive looking like that.”

Carol R., Sarasota, FL

Verified buyer

The reviews say the same things I do, over and over. 4.8 stars across more than 1,450 women. If you are going to add one warm thing to your closet before the clocks change, this is where I would start — while the sizes are still there.

— Rose

The Rose & Mabel Knit Cardigans

★★★★★

4.8 / 5 from 1,450+ reviews

$233.00

$69.95

Save $163.05

Real wool that holds the heat in, and softens with every wash

Wood buttons sewn with a shank, plus a spare stitched into the hem

Free shipping & 30 day money back guarantee

Stack and save: buy 2 save 10%, buy more and save up to 20% extra.

R

Rose

Co-founder · Rose & Mabel · Stowe, Vermont

Rose opened Rose & Mabel with her sister in 1991 and has run the shop on the same street in Stowe ever since. She has hosted Thursday knitting nights in the back room since 1996 — you do not have to live in Vermont to have a seat at that table. She still writes the note that goes in every parcel.