Cloud-Soft Blanket Yarn: Hook Sizes, Projects, and Skein Counts

Blanket yarn is the shortcut nobody feels guilty about. Stitches the size of your thumb, a fabric that's soft before you've finished it, and a throw that comes off the hook in a weekend rather than a season. Our Cloud-Soft Blanket Yarn is our version — a plush chenille tube in 57 shades, made for exactly that kind of project.

What is blanket yarn?

Blanket yarn is a thick, soft chenille yarn made for large, fast projects. Rather than being spun from loose fibres like wool or cotton, it's constructed as a plush pile around a core, which is what gives it the velvety surface and the squish. Because it's so thick, a stitch covers a lot of ground — a blanket that would take weeks in worsted-weight yarn takes a weekend or two in this.

Almost all blanket yarn, ours included, is 100% polyester. That's what keeps it soft, affordable, non-shedding, and colourfast.

The specs

• Fiber: 100% polyester
• Weight: bulky
• Skein: approx. 180 g / 6.3 oz, approx. 131 yds / 120 m
• Hook: 4.0–7.0 mm
• Needles: 6.0–8.0 mm
• Colors: 57 shades

The number worth pausing on is the skein weight. At 180 g this is a large skein — half again the size of a standard 100 g put-up — and it still carries 131 yards. For blankets that matters more than it sounds: fewer skeins means fewer ends to weave in and fewer colour-run joins to disguise.

What hook size do you use for blanket yarn?

For Cloud-Soft, anywhere from 4.0 mm to 7.0 mm, and which end you pick decides the character of the fabric:

• 4.0–5.0 mm gives a dense, structured fabric. This is the range for plushies and anything that needs to hold a shape.
• 6.0–7.0 mm gives a softer, more fluid drape that's quicker to work. This is the range for blankets and throws.

If you're following a pattern written for another blanket yarn, use the hook the pattern specifies and swatch before committing — hook recommendations vary more between brands than the yarns themselves do.

Is blanket yarn good for beginners?

Yes — it's one of the easiest yarns to learn on, for one reason: you can see what you're doing.

Chenille has a reputation for hiding stitches, and at finer weights that's fair. The pile closes over your stitchwork and counting turns into guesswork. Cloud-Soft escapes that by scale rather than texture. The stitches come out big enough to read through the pile, so a miscount shows up in the same round instead of three rounds later. Add the pace — the work grows visibly every time you sit down with it — and it's a forgiving place to start.

Two things still worth knowing:

• Keep your tension even rather than tight. Chenille doesn't need to be strangled. Loose stitches can push loops of pile out of the fabric later — the effect people call worming — but over-tightening a bulky yarn just makes it hard on your hands.
• Work in good light for the first few rows. The pile is most confusing at the very start, before the fabric has enough structure to show you its own rhythm.

What can you make with blanket yarn?

Blankets and throws are the obvious answer, and the one it's named for. Beyond that: floor cushions and pillow covers, chunky scarves and cowls, basket liners, pet beds, and oversized plushies where you want size fast.

For amigurumi specifically, this is a big-toy yarn — hug-sized friends rather than palm-sized ones. Our amigurumi yarn guide covers where it sits against the rest of the range, and the amigurumi yarn collection sorts everything by weight and finish.

How many skeins do you need for a blanket?

The most common reason a blanket goes unfinished is running out of yarn partway. Here's what to plan for, in skeins of Cloud-Soft Bulky:

Treat these as starting points, not promises. Stitch choice moves the number more than anything else — a dense single crochet can use a third more yarn than an open, airy stitch pattern over the same area. Border rounds and any texture stitch that works into the same space twice will add to it as well.

Working it out exactly

If you want a real number rather than an estimate, let a swatch tell you. Work a 6-inch square in your actual stitch pattern, note how much yarn it used, then scale by area:

(finished area ÷ swatch area) × swatch yardage ÷ 131 = skeins

A 50" × 60" throw is 3,000 square inches and a 6" swatch is 36, so the throw is a little over 83 swatches. If your swatch took 16 yards, that's roughly 1,310 yards, or 10 skeins. Round up and add one spare.

Buy the whole project in one order whichever way you work it out. Coming back for one more skein weeks later is how you end up with a visible colour-run seam across a finished blanket.

Substituting into a pattern written for another yarn

Most blanket-yarn patterns are written for a standard 150 g ball holding about 108 yards. Ours holds 131, so you'll usually need fewer skeins, not more — the opposite of most substitutions. Work from total yardage rather than ball count:

If your pattern uses larger 300 g balls instead, work from the yardage printed on its label: divide the pattern's total yards by 131 and round up.

Bulky or super bulky?

We make Cloud-Soft in two thicknesses, and the gap between them is bigger than the names suggest.

Gram for yard, the super bulky is about 42% thicker — the difference between a throw you curl up under and one that sits on the end of the bed making a statement. It works up dramatically faster, but at 46 yards a skein a full-size blanket takes a lot of them, so price the whole project before committing.

Choosing a shade

Fifty-seven colours is a lot to judge on a screen, and chenille pile photographs lighter than it looks in hand — the deeper shades especially. Every yarn family we make has a physical color card with real snips of yarn, which is worth the wait before committing to something as large as a blanket.

Common questions

Is blanket yarn machine washable?

Cloud-Soft is hand wash in cold water, laid flat to dry. Polyester chenille survives a machine, but agitation is what encourages the pile to shed and worm over time, so hand washing is what keeps a blanket looking new for years rather than seasons.

Why does chenille yarn worm, and how do you stop it?

Worming is when loops of pile push out of the finished fabric. It's almost always tension rather than the yarn: stitches worked loosely leave the pile room to migrate. Keep your tension even, and if a loop does appear, ease it back through to the wrong side with a hook rather than cutting it.

Can you use blanket yarn for amigurumi?

Yes, for large plushies. Go down to a 4.0–5.0 mm hook so the fabric is dense enough that stuffing never shows through. For palm-sized amigurumi with fine detail, a finer yarn will serve you better — our amigurumi yarn guide covers the choice.

Does blanket yarn shed?

A little at first, as loose pile from cutting and winding works free. It settles after the first wash and normal use. Weaving ends in securely matters more with chenille than with spun yarns, since a poorly secured end can work loose over time.

When you're ready to start, our crochet patterns are written around these exact yarns, and the rest of the range lives in blanket yarn and chenille yarn.