This pillow glows in the dark, has a roomy hidden pocket, and holds up to years of use. (A child would love its comforting nightlight and built-in toy pocket features.)

Take a basic smooth worsted weight yarn and crochet simple stitches in a spiral. Then it gets exciting: slip stitch some glow in the dark Jelly Yarn® onto the surface of the pillow front.

The look and feel of the surface-crocheted Jelly Yarn is very cool. You just have to see for yourself. It also adds impressive durability to the pillow surface.

Assembly is easy too, with a bonus hidden roomy stash pocket. It’s easy to change the pillow’s diameter by increasing or decreasing rounds.

Skill Level: Advanced Beginner. After using this pattern, you will know (if you didn’t already):

• How to crochet spiraling rounds.
• How to create a pillow with a roomy pocket simply and effectively.
• How to do surface slip stitch crochet, which is a very old form of crochet called tambour. According to some accounts, today’s crochet developed from tambour lace.
• How to combine a traditional household yarn with quite the opposite—an unusual, futuristic monofilament yarn—for fun and very practical results.

About the materials used:
For the contrast yarn I used a ball of Jelly Yarn® Fine (shown in “Vanilla Peppermint Glow” and “Pink Peppermint Glow”). You can see all colors and sizes of Jelly Yarn in my shop.
To substitute a yarn: This unique yarn, a vinyl monofilament, is listed in the #2 Fine Weight category (a.k.a. sport weight). Sometimes it behaves like a thicker yarn because of how bouncy it is. For this pillow, try a #3 or #4 yarn and see if you like it.

Pillow Stuffing: A standard 14” {35.56 cm} round pillow form, or poly fiberfill, or a square pillow form with corners that you have rounded.

Also helpful: Length of contrasting scrap yarn, 10” {25.4 cm} or so (for marking spiraling rounds). Hand lotion, small amount (recommended for Jelly Yarn).

I originally wrote this pattern in 2009. It was inspired directly by the Crochet Liberation Front (a pattern book called CLF All Growed Up! was in the works back then).