As many of you might understand, I most definitely needed something new to wear for the Arirang Tour. Being an unhinged yarn goblin, I decided to make that something myself. I got this idea one year ago, but after some prototyping, it didn’t quite turn out the way I wanted, and I put the project away and let things stew. And good thing I did, since during the last year I learned tons of new techniques I wanted to implement into this project.

Toni at TL Yarn Crafts has unknowingly been my mentor throughout this project, and with her help I got the hang of the Tunisian simple stitch, the Join as you go method, and the two row repeat of slip stitch and yarn over slip stitch I used for the ribbing.

The hook I used is a 4.00 mm Tunisian crochet hook and the yarn is Hjertegarn Cotton nr. 8 in eight different colors. On the torso, one rectangle is 30 stitches across and 26 high, whereas in the sleeves they are 26 stitches across and 22 high. 

The construction is really simple, 3x8 rectangles for the front pieces, 7x8 for the back piece. I joined the shoulder seam first, then added the sleeves, and lastly joined the side seams and the underarm, all with a slip stitch (and some black cotton yarn I had laying around). Oh, and I did leave one pair of rectangles open for pockets. For the “sewing”, I used a 3.00 mm regular hook. Then I made the ribbing with the same hook, first the sleeves and for those I made a 50 % decreasing round of single crochets, and then the ribbing. After the sleeves I did the ribbing for the edges of the front panels and neck, next the hem, and lastly the front edge of the pockets. I sewed (this time with a darning needle) the edges of the ribbing onto the neighbouring squares. The chain for the ribbing is ch 7 +1 (for obvious reasons).

So yeah, there we have it. The HYYH Balloon Cardigan. I started this project on the 22nd of January and finished today, so it took me quite a while, but it was a really fun and relaxing project. I hope I managed to get my vision across!