A letter from Edith · Co-founder of Mabel & Edith
Weston, Vermont · September 2026
A letter from Edith (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.
My sister and I opened Mabel & Edith in 1991, on a quiet street in Stowe, Vermont, where winter arrives early and often stays well into April.
From the very beginning, we had one simple belief: staying warm should never mean sacrificing a good fit.
Now September is here, and the mornings are starting to feel different. The air is cooler, the days are getting shorter, and that first real taste of autumn is just around the corner. Whether you live in Vermont, Ohio, Colorado, or somewhere further south where fall takes a little longer to arrive, you know the feeling.
There is always that one morning when you step outside and realize summer is finally letting go.
But this time of year has its own little challenge. It can be chilly when you leave the house, surprisingly warm by lunchtime, and cold again before the evening is over. You find yourself taking layers on and off all day.
A pullover gives you one option. A cardigan gives you choices.
You can wear it over your favorite blouse in the morning, take it off when the afternoon sun comes out, and slip it back on when the temperature drops again.
That is why, after more than three decades of making knitwear, the cardigan remains one of my favorite pieces to recommend.
And if you are looking for one that feels just as good as it looks, there are six things I would love to show you about ours, starting with the details that matter most.
Why the Cardigan Is the One I'd Hand You First
Five reasons, plainly.
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.”
It's wool, so it's actually warm.
Wool holds heat and still breathes, so you're warm in a cold kitchen without overheating the moment you walk into a store.
The pattern is knitted in, not printed on.
On our yoke cardigans the pattern is worked into the wool itself. There's nothing printed on top to crack or fade.
Real color.
A green sweater is not a costume. Lavender is not a cry for help. There's a lot of room between cheerful and trying to look twenty-five, and that's where we design.
Take the size you usually wear.
If you're between two, take the bigger one. And if it isn't right, you have thirty days to send it back.
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.
- 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
- 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
Why the cardigans are 70% OFF this month
This month, Mabel & Edith celebrates 35 years in business. Thirty-five years on the same street, with the same two sisters, and the same little table in the back room where we still wrap every order by hand.
To celebrate, we decided to do something a little different. For the first time, we’ve put all 37 of our cardigan styles into one anniversary event, with prices reduced to close to what it costs us to make them.
This isn’t a seasonal sale or another promotion that comes around every few weeks. It’s our way of celebrating 35 years of doing what we love. Once a style sells out in your size, we may not be able to bring it back. When the anniversary event ends, our cardigans return to their regular price of $215.
We don’t know when we’ll have another occasion like this, so if there’s a cardigan you’ve had your eye on, now is a good time to take a look.
Applied automatically at checkout. Free shipping in the US. 30 days to change your mind.
Don't buy it for the occasion. Buy it for the Tuesday. The good sweater isn't supposed to live in the drawer. It's supposed to live on you.
For the four o'clock chill in your own kitchen. The grocery run. The school pickup. The afternoon nobody's looking.
She was never meant to disappear into beige. She was always meant to be seen.
From my heart to yours,
Edith
The Mabel & Edith Knit Cardigans
- 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.