The Bari Cardigan V-neck: A Mesh Stripe Crochet Cardigan Pattern

About this mesh stripe crochet cardigan pattern

The Bari Cardigan V-neck is an oversized button front cardigan worked in the mesh stripe fabric the whole Bari collection is built on: bands of solid double crochet with rows of open mesh cut through them. The neckline is a deep V, the shoulders are dropped, and the body is cut wide.

It is worked flat in panels and seamed, with the V shaping built into the front panels. The sleeves are worked in the round from the top down, so there is no sleeve seam. The ribbed hem, the button bands and the neckline trim go on at the end.

There are eight sizes, XS to 4XL, and the pattern includes a cropped version. The cardigan in these photos is the cropped one. It is written for an advanced beginner: if you can work double crochet and chain spaces and you are willing to seam four panels together, you have what you need.

Materials

• Yarn: 900 to 1800 m (985 to 1970 yds) of DK weight yarn depending on size. The sample is DROPS Lima, 65% wool and 35% alpaca, 50 g = 100 m / 109 yds, which works out at 9 to 18 balls.
• Hook: 5 mm (US H/8), or whichever hook gets you the gauge below.
• Buttons: 2 to 2.5 cm (0.75 to 1 in) across. 3 for cropped, otherwise 4
• Notions: yarn needle and stitch markers.

How to check your gauge

With a 5 mm hook, after blocking, 16 double crochet and 8 rows = 10 x 10 cm (4 x 4 in). Make the swatch, wet it, pin it flat, let it dry, and measure it then.

Those two words matter here more than they do in most patterns, because of the yarn. DROPS Lima is 35% alpaca, and alpaca has much less memory than wool. Fibres like alpaca and silk give lovely drape and they also grow when you wet block them, which is a point Marie Greene makes about blocking growth from the knitting side. If you measure your swatch dry and it is bang on 16 stitches, the blocked fabric is likely to be looser than that, and the finished cardigan comes out wider than the size chart.

Block it the way you will wash the cardigan. Lima is a hand wash yarn, so hand wash the swatch. If you want somewhere flat to pin things out, I have a tutorial on making a blocking board from a sheet of foam.

One more thing to count. The published gauge is measured over the solid double crochet, and the fabric is half mesh. The two alternate all the way up the body, so count your mesh rows as well: if the solid bands are on gauge and the mesh is not, the stripes will bunch or stretch instead of sitting flat. If your gauge is off and you are not sure which way to move, I wrote a whole post on getting a crochet gauge to match the pattern.

Size chart

Those lengths are for the full length version. The cropped one in the photos is shorter, and the pattern tells you where to stop.

How much ease does this cardigan have?

About 20 cm (8 in) of positive ease in the smaller sizes, and as little as 12 cm (4.75 in) at the top of the larger ones. Positive ease is the difference between the finished chest of the garment and your own bust measurement, so 20 cm of it means the cardigan measures 20 cm more than you do.

The listing gives an intended bust fit for each size as a band rather than a single number, and the bands are not all the same width. Through XS to L each band covers 5 cm (2 in) and the finished chest steps by 5 cm as well, so the ease stays between 18 and 23 cm (7 and 9 in) wherever in the band you sit. From XL upwards each band covers 10 cm (4 in) while the finished chest steps by 10 cm, so the ease runs from 22 cm (8.75 in) at the bottom of a band down to 12 cm (4.75 in) at the top.

So choose by finished chest, not by which band your bust falls into. Measure your bust, add about 20 cm (8 in), and pick the size closest to that number. If you are at the top of the XL, 2XL, 3XL or 4XL band and you want the loose fit in the photos rather than a gently roomy one, take the next size up.

There is room to play here, because a cardigan is worn open most of the time. Less ease gives you something that still buttons and sits closer to the body. More gives you the oversized version.

Yarn substitutions for DROPS Lima

Any DK weight yarn that gets you the gauge will work. The number to match is the metres per gram. Lima gives 100 m per 50 g, and that tells you far more than the word DK does.

That puts Lima at the heavy end of DK. Ravelry lists it at 11 wraps per inch with a knitting gauge of 21 stitches to 10 cm (4 in), and the Craft Yarn Council’s category 3, the DK band, runs from 21 to 24 stitches to 10 cm. Lima sits at the loosest edge of it. Plenty of yarns sold as DK come in at 110 to 130 m per 50 g, and those are thinner.

This is also why the gram column on the listing is a DROPS Lima figure rather than a general one. 900 m of Lima weighs 450 g. The same 900 m of a DK at 125 m per 50 g weighs 360 g. Buy to the metres and ignore the gram column unless you are using Lima. There is more on all of this in my post on substituting yarn in any crochet pattern.

They are yarns I picked on fibre, weight and metres per 50 g from the makers’ own figures and from Ravelry, and I have not crocheted this cardigan in any of them.

Skills you’ll need

• Double crochet and chain spaces.
• Working mesh over a chain space foundation.
• Seaming flat panels together neatly.
• Working a sleeve in the round from the top down.
• A buttonhole, and sewing buttons on straight.
• Reading a graded pattern so you can follow one size through.

The design process

The Bari Sweater came first, and everything since has been the same idea in a different shape: solid double crochet with rows of mesh cut through it. The collection is named after the city the original yarn came from.

The two cardigans came out together in July 2025, and they are really one cardigan with two necklines. Put the listings side by side and every published number is the same: eight sizes, the same finished chest and length, the same yarn amounts, the same gauge, the same hook. Only the neckline and the button count differ.

The V is the version I reach for when I am layering. It sits open over a crew neck tee without two collars fighting each other, which is how it is worn in the photos above.

This one is built differently from my seamless patterns. It is worked flat in panels and sewn together, rather than in the round from the top down. A button front wants two straight edges down the centre and a band picked up along them, and flat panels give you that without any shaping in the way. The sleeves still go on from the top down in the round, so the only seams are at the shoulders and sides.

The mesh does more work on a cardigan than it does on the sweater. In DK at this width, solid crochet would make a heavy thing to wear indoors. Cutting mesh through it takes out some of the fabric and some of the yarn, so it stays a layering piece rather than a coat.

Part of a collection

The Bari collection

Every piece in the collection uses the same mesh stripe, so the stitch pattern you learn on one turns up again on all the others.

• Bari Cardigan V-neck: this one. Deep V, button front, cropped version included.
• Bari Cardigan crew neck: the same cardigan with a crew neckline and two more buttons. Both are also sold as a bundle.
• Bari Sweater: where the collection started. A cropped crewneck pullover in sport weight wool.
• Bari Top: the sleeveless summer version.
• Bari Vest and Bari Slipover: two layering pieces.
• Bari Bucket Hat: the small one, and a cheap way to try the mesh stripe before committing to a cardigan.

If you want to know when the next one lands, the newsletter sign-up is at the bottom of this page. Tester calls always go out on Instagram first.

Questions I get asked