Silk Baby Crochet Cocoon Tutorial

Written by Kate Curry

Who doesn’t love to swaddle a baby in a snuggly little cocoon like a little caterpillar?! Wrap your precious little baby in a handmade silk cocoon that you made yourself!

Materials

5.5 mm crochet hook
4.5 mm crochet hook
Scissors
3 skeins of Silk Roving Worsted Weight Yarn - I used Start With Love!

Measurements

Length: 17 inches
Width: 9 inches

Abbreviations

CO: Cast on
MC: Magic Circle
CH(s): Chain(s)
DC: Double crochet
SLST: Slip stitch
ST(S): Stitch(es)
INC: Increase
SK: Skip
BLOSC: Back Loop Only Single Crochet
BLO: Back loop only

Let’s Go!

Round 1: CO and make a MC, CH 3, and make 12 DC into the circle. SLST closed
Round 2: DC into every CH (12)
Round 3:INC by putting 2 DC in each ST (24)
Round 4:DC in each CH (24)
Round 5: INC by putting 2 DC in each ST (48)
Round 6-9: DC in each CH (48)
Round 10: INC by putting 2 DC in the next ST, and a single DC in the next 2 STS. Repeat for the row. (64)
Round 11-30: DC in each CH (64) SLST the ends together.
Round 31: CH 10
Round 32: Using your 4.5 mm crochet hook, SK the 1st CH and BLOSC into each CH down the line. At the end of the row, anchor your row by SLST into the 2 SC of the main body of the cocoon.

Click or Tap for Transcript

Hey everybody, Kate from darn good yarn here and I'm going to show you how to make crochet ribbing. So, today I am working on our little baby cocoon, but you can use this crochet ribbing technique on sleeves turtlenecks, pretty much anything - it's really really cute. So, I've clearly got a little bit of a head start but I'm going to work this chain as if it's the first. So, when you're using this technique, the first thing you want to do is to make a chain the length that you want the ribbing. So, I just wanted this to be like maybe like a two inch ribbing, so that's how long I made mine. So, once you have your foundation chain as it's called, I'm going to pretend that this is our foundation chain.

Once you get to the end you're going to chain one, and then you are going to - I'm actually going to turn this way, and you are going to work down the chain in the back loop only, making single crochets. So, here's this bad boy right here and i'm going to single crochet right down my length of chain. And this is the same for if you have a 5 chain or if you have a 50 chain. This is what you're going to be doing! Come on buddy, there we go. That chain was a little tight - there we go. So, you're just gonna single crochet down the entire chain i'm using the worsted weight, our darn good yarn worsted weight yarn for this with a 4.5 millimeter crochet hook - oops almost a double crochet there.

As you can tell, I've been double crocheting all morning, so I'm excited to try to sneak in and double crochet on y'all. All right, we're halfway there. Turn the work a little bit more so I can get a good angle and just keep doing single crochets down the back loop until you get to that last chain. Come on buddy. Yeah! That one was a fighter. He was a fighter till the end! All right, and once you get to the end of your ribbing, you have to anchor it to the base of your project. You can't just have it all flopping around. So, what you're going to do is of the base of the project, I don't care if it's a baby cocoon or if it's the sleeve of a sweater or a hat - whatever.

You're going to slip stitch into the next two chains. So, I'm going to slip stitch - oopsies - I'm going to slip stitch here and I'm going to slip stitch there. So, two slip stitches. Now we're going to turn our work and what we're going to do is we're going to ignore these two slip stitches and we are going to do single crochets in the back loop back up the chain. So, skipping these two slip stitches, pretend like they don't matter, and work your way right back up. Shimmy back on up that chain with single crochets of course and this kind of back and forth is what creates the ribbing effect in these chains. I learned this technique on youtube many a year ago and i have used it on so so many projects. I love using this on the waist of like crocheted skirts because it adds just a little bit of tightness without having to have me squeeze into a skirt that's a little too tight in some places. These are also great for um leggings or um leg warmers. There you go buddy.

Some of these chains are fighters but, hey you know what can I say, I made them, I'm proud of them. All right, and once you get to the last chain you're going to do your last single crochet and you're going to chain one. You're going to turn your work, and you're going to do the same exact thing that we did at the very beginning, working single crochets down the chain, slip stitch into two of these uh stitches, and then turnng your work, skipping the two, and working your way back up. And what it makes is this beautiful ribbing it's very very soft really really cool looking and adds a little bit of texture to your work. So here's what it looks like in comparison to what I did with the body with just single - I'm sorry with just a bunch of different double crochets and I'm giving the ribbing up top just to make it a little bit tighter and it really makes the colors pop. The change in direction of stitches are really interesting to look at but yeah this is how you do very simple, very easy, and very quick rib stitching for your crochet

Round 33:Turn your piece so that you will be working up. SK the 2 SLST you made and BLOSC up the row. At the end of the CH, CH 1 and rotate. Before you start to BLOSC down the row, skip the first CH.

Repeat rows 32 and 33 around the whole body of the cocoon.

Turn the cocoon inside out and SLST using the BLO. BO when finished.

On a dark wooden table, a baby cocoon made from mint green, periwinkle, and pastel pink is laying. A hang is holding open the opening where you would slide the baby into the cocoon

Meet the Author

Kate has been on the Darn Good Yarn team since 2018.

They have their degree in Creative Art Therapy & Psychology - and like crafting and animals a little too much.