Antipodes

The secret's finally out. Andrea Mowry's 2026 Rhinebeck sweater is here, and this year it's Antipodes (an·ti·puh·deez). Every year Andrea's Rhinebeck design turns into a bit of an institution, sweater knitters all over the world cast on together to wear at New York Sheep & Wool and to adorn from home as well.

The Dream Team

This is one of my favorite projects of the year, hands down. When I started Farmer's Daughter ten years ago, I had no idea I'd end up with friendships that feel like sisterhood and happen to also be my work colleagues.

When some people travel they have to get in every site, every museum and fill the days with hustle and bustle. My ideal travel schedule is some site seeing but a whole lot of cafe knitting and at least a trip to the spa. Luckily my travel partners are in sync. 🤎  The morning after VKL, in a cozy cafe, Andrea and I had a spread of Confluence on the table. We held skeins up to the light, chatting about what combos we loved most.

And the start of my sweater also happened on the road. I cast it on while sitting on a beach in Odeceixe, Portugal, on a trip where Andrea and I hiked portions of the Fisherman's Trail. This is the first time I've knit a sweater in this particular construction, and I was so lucky to have her hand-holding me through it. It's fun, it's different, and the fit is really incredible. Casting on a sweater on that beach is a core memory now, one I get to keep wearing, over and over, every time I put it on.

Spincycle brings the magic to so many projects. First, they were unbelievably generous sending us so much Dyed in the Wool for these kits. I am so inspired by their team! Kate and Rachel started Spincycle back in 2004 as a two-person hand spinnery, hand-dyeing and hand-spinning every single skein themselves out of Bellingham, Washington. By 2012 they'd outgrown that model, but instead of handing their process off to some outside mill, they built their own, because they refused to lose what made their yarn theirs. Everything happens in-house now: dyeing, spinning, packing, shipping, even their marketing and design. Dyed in the Wool is the result of all that stubbornness; wool that's grown here in the U.S. and dyed in the fiber before it's ever spun, which is why the color shifts through each skein feel handspun even though they're not. It's a team that clearly works well together, and you can see that care in every single skein that comes out of that mill.

Photo by Anna Markle from Spincycle Yarns

Green Mountain Spinnery

Green Mountain Spinnery has been spinning yarn out of a converted gas station in Putney, Vermont since 1981, and they are, honestly, one of the most quietly impressive companies in this whole industry. They're a worker-owned co-op, they mill on vintage machinery (some of it over a hundred years old), and their entire mission from day one has been to support regional sheep farming and process natural fibers responsibly; no harsh chemicals, vegetable-based spinning oils, the whole thing. Every fiber they use, wool, cotton, alpaca, mohair, is grown in the United States, and they buy directly from individual farmers whenever they can.

Confluence getting spun up!

BTS Green Mountain Spinnery Photos by Kate Larson, Farm & Fiber Knits

For this project specifically, they worked incredibly hard to pull together enough yarn for us to make this happen; both the wool and the cotton in this project are U.S.-made, sheep to skein, farm to fiber, the whole chain staying domestic. That's not a small thing to pull off at the scale we needed, and I don't take it for granted.

Behind the Scenes at the Dye Studio

None of this happens without our dye studio team, and I want to brag on them for a second. Getting 18 kit combinations ready for a release this size means dyeing, drying, skeining, and quality-checking an enormous amount of yarn, on top of everything else that keeps FDF running day to day. We also just need to mention that Confluence is by far the hardest base for us to dye and it is not glamorous work. It is hot, it is repetitive, and it takes a level of precision and patience that I genuinely do not think people picture when they buy a hand-dyed skein off our website.

Our team did that work for months to make sure every colorway in this collection was ready to ship on schedule. "Don't rush the dye" isn't just something we say around here, it's the whole philosophy, and it means the people doing this work are putting in real hours to get every skein right rather than just getting it done fast. This release exists because they always showed up for the team.

How I Knit My Sweater

For my sweater, I used three skeins of Dyed in the Wool in Slow Burn. Because Spincycle's colors shift slowly and dramatically down the length of the skein, I wanted to control exactly where those shifts landed instead of leaving it to chance so I broke each skein into small balls and separated them into plastic sandwich bags, sorted roughly light to dark.

I started the back with a mid-range color and worked my way lighter as I went. Then, when I picked up the provisional cast-on to work the other direction, I went darker which gave me this deliberate ombré effect running through the whole piece. I managed the body of the sweater the same way, keeping that gradual light-to-dark shift consistent throughout.

One more thing, because I think it matters: I did not get gauge on this sweater. And instead of forcing it, I did the math and went down two sizes in the pattern to get the fabric I actually wanted. This is always true for me, I will adjust the size before I'll knit fabric I don't love. A sweater you're excited to wear is worth more than a sweater that technically matches the pattern's stated size. Gauge is a tool, not a rulebook. 

Head to our Antipodes Hub for all the important links and KAL info!

Happy Knitting!

Rhinebeck 2025