I’m addicted to crocheting. I wish I could crochet for a living. No 9-to-5 job. Freedom of when to start, to work or not and seeing a (semi) beautiful project come along. Yes I’ll only be working on wearable for some more time before trying out jewellery etc. For simple reason that winter is around the corner and I’m hypersensitive to cold weather. Correction, I’m hypersensitive to everything you can think of.

In my 5 months crochet journey, I have 3 projects pending because I ran out of yarn and haven’t found those dyes again. So this time I had a clear mind to buy more than needed. I got 500g of 3 ply yarn, which has approximately 500m in a 100g hank. Quick math guys, that’s ~2500m of yarn. I can crochet forever :-p

I decided to do a bottom up densely crocheted cardigan. Only to find out that yarn is too light to work up quickly. I know myself only too well – I don’t have the patience. The two color Cardigan I did in 10 days that too after office hours, household chores and what not. (You think I’m boasting 😉 )

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After crocheting two top down cardigans with round yoke, and having realized how easily the fitting could be messed up; I decided to do something different. I googled for alternate yoke styles but mostly found knitting patterns. Crochet folks do more of round yoke I guess. A few had V neck line but pattern was a little bit lacy, suitable for spring shrug, a definite no no for winters. So I thought let’s do a square.

Couple more days of thinking and I suddenly thought why not do a double strand. It’ll make yarn bulkier, can be worked quickly (and I have plenty of yarn, PLENTY, did you hear that)

One may wonder why not double strand bottom up cardigan? The reason is three-fold.

1. 1. Top down allows to adjust length if I fear I will run out of yarn again. I am scarred for life on this one. I have a beautiful ripple shawl pending for months due to less yarn 🙁
2. The piece is worked all in one. no need to join different pieces together.
3. I like how quickly you can see the cardigan shape up.

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I don’t have any inspiration this time. Just going with my instinct (end goal being a full sleeved, full length cardigan, that fits me, and looks good… Is that too much to ask for?)

So we start with 60 ch. It is my magic number. I don’t like deep neck for a cardigan. 60 ch gives good starting point.

5 mm hook.
Chain 60

Row 1: Do  hdc around – 60 st

Markers: 8, 23, 38, 43

Increase row: Do dc in each till marker. Make corner (dc2-ch1-dc2) in marked st. – 76 st

+16 st in each row

Repeat until desired shoulder width and armhole depth is reached. I did 10 rows to get 7 inches.

Below is a picture after 7 rows. It looks awesome. I’m glad I tried double strand crocheting.

I have not decided what stitch or pattern to do the body. Maybe another post with completed project. See you then.