A light and airy summer crochet cardigan featured on Make and Do Crew!
I’ve been holding onto this secret for months (since August!) and I’m so happy that I can finally share the Willow Cardigan with you!
Made with Mako Cotton yarn, the Willow Cardigan is soft, light and airy - the ultimate summer project! Simple crochet stitches and chains combine to create a drapey lace cardigan, that’s a lot easier to crochet than it seems!
The cardigan follows a simple construction - a back panel and 2 front panels, that are sewn together and edged in single crochet.
With a relaxed, comfy fit, the Willow Cardigan pairs well over jeans, dresses or use it as a cover up at the beach!
In the middle of last year (which feels like a lifetime ago!) Make and Do Crew was looking for guest crochet designers/bloggers and For The Frills was offered a guest post feature!
If you’ve never heard of Make and Do Crew.com, it’s an incredible crochet blog full of modern and free crochet patterns. It’s run by one the original crochet bloggers, Jess Coppom and she has created such a wonderful resource for modern makers.
Design Inspiration
Working with Jess and her sister Jamie was so easy and I was pretty much given free rein to design whatever took my fancy! As I was looking through Lion Brand Yarn’s website one of their LB collection yarns stood out – Mako Cotton.
It looked so incredibly soft, light and squishy I knew I had to crochet with it! After, swatching a few different stitches I decided to make a lacy, summer cardigan and thus the Willow Cardigan was born 🙂
Yarn
Lion Brand’s Mako Cotton crochets like a dream! Unlike traditional 100% cotton yarns, Mako Cotton is pillowy soft which produces garments with incredible drape. You get such great yardage per 50g, you almost feel like you’re not wearing anything!
There are 9 shades with a mix of pastels and brights (The cardigan is in the shade ‘light grey’) and the yarn is classified as an aran/worsted weight. However, I think Mako Cotton is a bit on the thicker side of a medium(4) yarn so make sure your yarn is suitable for at least a 5.5mm (US I) hook.
Looking for free summer crochet patterns?
1. Sea Breeze Tank Top / 2. Leila Tie Strap Crop Top / 3. Forest Breeze Tee
MATERIALS
Lion Brand LB Collection Mako Cotton – 10plyAran/Worsted/Medium(4), 115m/50g,
94% Mako Cotton + 6% Nylon, Light Grey
7(9, 11) skeins
Add to your Ravelry queue here!
You can find the ad-free, printable version here!
Or the free crochet pattern on Make and Do Crew!
Happy crocheting, Grace 🙂
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The math is wrong on the medium size. The front panels should be 41 chains to start and 38 stitches. I made the first panel and realized after I was done that there would only be a 1 stitch gap between the panels at the back. The other sizes have a 7 stitch gap between panels
Hi Julie,
The pattern has a very specific stitch multiple so for the front panels you won't be able to crochet the same stitch pattern if you have 38 stitches. The gap isn't an issue as when you wear the cardigan the width of your neckline will stretch out the neckline anyway and it will still sit nicely on your body.
I hope this helps,
Grace
Thank you for your reply! I realized that row 4 wouldn’t quite work with my new stitch count of 38 but I liked the narrower panel, so I decided to do 1 extra dc at the beginning of row 4 on one front panel and at the end of row 4 on the other front panel. Then, I placed the panels with the “extra” dc at the seam so that they are hardly noticeable.
This is a super cute pattern and I think my daughter-in-law is going to love it!
How would I extend the sleeves by a few inches? Do I need to do it by a specific stitch number? Thank you!
Hi Grace!
I’m currently making this beautiful cardigan but seem to have come at a crossroads with row 4. For some reason my stitch count is 85 instead of 83.. and was wondering what I did wrong! Is love to hear back from you!
Thank you for your time!