A letter from NANCY · founder of The Halloway Family
Boston, Massachusetts · October 2026
A letter from the founder
Nineteen 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 fall, I would make it a cardigan — and I will tell you exactly why.
My late husband and I opened The Halloway Family nineteen years ago with a small boutique and a shared belief that women deserve clothes that feel as good as they look. From the very beginning, I had one rule: if a piece wasn’t comfortable and dependable enough to wear on the coldest mornings, it didn’t belong in our collection.
Five years ago, during the uncertainty of the COVID pandemic, I passed the boutique on to my daughter and son-in-law. It meant the world to me to see them carry on what my husband and I had built together. They brought their own ideas and energy to the business, but the heart of it stayed the same: choosing pieces we would be proud to recommend to the women who shop with us.
It’s October, and here in Boston, the mornings are already getting colder. You can feel it the moment you step outside, even when the afternoon promises a little sunshine. That first truly chilly morning always seems to arrive a few weeks before anyone is ready for it.
And here’s the thing about this time of year: the weather can’t seem to make up its mind. It’s cold, then warm, then cold again, sometimes all in a single day. A pullover is a decision you make at seven in the morning and then live with. A cardigan is different. You can take it off, put it back on, and adjust as the day unfolds.
That’s why, after nineteen years of helping women find pieces they’ll reach for season after season, a cardigan is still the first thing I’d recommend. It’s versatile, easy to layer, and exactly the kind of piece that earns its place in a wardrobe when the seasons begin to change. There are six things I’d tell you about ours, in the order I’d point them out.
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
Thirty-seven of them, S through 5XL, one price
Not one cardigan in seven colors. Thirty-seven patterns, each with its own yoke, and the chart re-worked for every size so the colorwork 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.”
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
The Halloway Family
- 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 60% OFF this month
For nineteen years, The Halloway Family has been a part of our little corner of Boston. My late husband and I built this boutique together, one customer at a time, never imagining how much the world around us would change.
Five years ago, during the COVID pandemic, I passed the business on to my daughter and son-in-law. Since then, the challenges have kept coming. Rising operating costs, the shift toward online shopping, and the lasting impact of the pandemic have made it harder than ever for a small, independent boutique like ours to compete.
I wish things were different. We’ve tried to weather these changes, but the truth is that we’ve reached a point where something has to give. Without a meaningful change, we may not be able to keep our doors open.
That’s why we’re holding our Revival Sale. We’re offering all pieces from our collection at significantly reduced prices, hoping to bring new life into the business and give our little boutique a fighting chance to carry on.
After everything we’ve built over nineteen years, closing our doors is not what we want. We want to keep serving our customers, sharing the pieces we love, and welcoming familiar faces through our doors for years to come. But right now, we need your support more than ever.
19
Years on the same street
4.7★
Across 2,000+ reviews
37
Patterns, S to 5XL
30
Days to change your mind
“Two cardigans on my porch in three days, wrapped in tissue with a note written by hand. I have never had a package from anywhere arrive looking like that.”
The NANCY 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
The reviews say the same things I do, over and over. 4.7 stars across more than 2,000 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.
— Nancy