This Crochet Cocoon Cardigan is snuggly and soft with Red Heart yarn from American Yarns and pattern from a fabulous CrochetU class.
It is such an awesome feeling to finish a project!
Especially a crochet project that has taken longer than expected. Like this Cocoon Cardigan!
Although I took a little while, this is definitely a beginner crochet project with a simple repetitive stitch pattern and a clear video tutorial to help you. Using variegated yarn makes it look great without having to change colours all the time too.
I started this Cocoon Cardigan last year hoping to have it done fairly quickly since it was supposed to be a 30-day CrochetU project. But somehow time got away and it didn’t quite get finished. It has been languishing beside the couch – and sometimes in my car! – for months so this week I decided enough was enough.
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There has been a lot of Commonwealth Games on TV each night this week with the kids so I made this project my priority.
First, I had to weave in the ends. I used 8 balls of yarn in the end so there were a number of joins where the ends needed to be woven in. I use these big plastic needles for sewing yarn.
This cardigan is essentially a huge granny square which I crocheted up in gorgeous Red Heart Unforgettable Waves yarn. The yarn is so soft and squishy that everywhere I took this project, people asked to feel the yarn and commented on how beautiful it was. The colourway is called Lakehouse and ranges from a lovely royal blue to a silvery grey.
The yarn is 100% acrylic and varies in thickness. At first, I found this variation a bit off-putting, but as I worked with it, I got used to the texture. It creates an interesting look in the crochet that is quite different to the usual even stitches.
This lovely yarn was gifted to me by the lovely ladies at American Yarns, an online store based in Melbourne. You can find their whole range of Unforgettable Waves here. There is also a Red Heart yarn called Unforgettable which is a more even texture without the waves. It also has gorgeous variegated colours – see them here.
You may have seen some of my progress shots on Instagram. I used a size 5.5 mm crochet hook. With this yarn, I found I needed to use a hook that worked easily with the larger texture of the yarn rather than the thinner sections.
This is the first piece of clothing I have crocheted and I’m not sure how much I will really wear it, but it was a lovely project to work on. I’m thinking it might be the jacket that lives in my car for sudden cold nights at tennis fixtures that run later than expected. I wear jeans a lot in Winter so this will go with most outfits I might be wearing.
I even got my Little Miss to snap so photos to show you how it looks on – a very rare thing here at Crafty HQ! It is very drapey and soft, and hangs nice and long at the back. If I made another one I wonder whether it would be better to be slightly larger so that it wrapped more at the front for warmth.
If you’d like to make a Cocoon Cardigan too, I can highly recommend the tutorials in CrochetU. They include a PDF pattern to download and full video tutorials so you can actually see someone working the stitches and talking you through it. The program is a monthly subscription deal but so you’d get access to the current class when you sign up. But once you are in the portal you can find all the previous classes to purchase.
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