Ponchos are all over my feed right now, it seems like everyone on YouTube is making one! They’re attractive to me because they’re retro and speedy to make. I ended up making one because yes, they’re trendy, but also because I felt like I needed more summer knits that packed more of a punch than just another tank top.

I opted to use our new base from Bramble Ridge: the Merino/Linen. I unboxed the colours when they came in and felt quite drawn to the green colour way “Lucky”. The texture that the linen adds to the yarn is so beautiful, and I knew I had to use it for something. At the time I did not have a fingering weight garment in me, so I opted to strengthen my crochet skills and freehand a poncho!

This is one of those projects that really doesn’t need a pattern, though there are some great poncho patterns out there. Ponchos literally just require two rectangles, and you just sew them together. This older tutorial from DROPS gives a really clear demonstration of how to sew the two rectangles together, and the cool part is, you can customize how large they are and what stitch pattern you use depending on what you want the poncho to look like.

The crochet stitch I used I also found on YouTube (…. writing this blog post has made it clear that I might need to spend less time on YouTube!) and it was super simple. It’s from an account called Crochet Town and they call this “Stitch Pattern 41.”

All in all I’m really happy with how everything came out, and I’d recommend an open stitch poncho as a summer project with a little punch. It might sound a little silly but because it’s so big it gives me the coziness of wearing a blanket without actually wearing anything warm.

…aaaand If you don’t feel like doing all the work to DIY your own poncho pattern, the Summer Poncho by Aver P seems to be the hot ticket poncho pattern right now

All right friends, happy poncho-ing! Stay cool out there.