This is a super quick and easy crochet project. I found a pretty ball of Lily Sugar’n Cream Naturals in Terra Firma while I was at Meijer the other day (of all places!! For those who don’t know, it’s similar to a WalMart or Target store). I liked the color but I had no idea what to do with it. Well yesterday I noticed that we really don’t have any coasters for the fall season, so I picked up the yarn and started crocheting! That’s what’s so awesome about knowing a craft like that. Once you know what you need or want to create, it’s no problem either wing-dinging it yourself, or going to the internet to look for a pattern.

These don’t really have a “pattern”. They are concentric circles of eveningly increasing single crochets. Crocheting in the round is something I learned from amigurumi. I happen to find it a beautiful technique and would much prefer everything crocheted this way rather than fiddling with slip stitches and joining. If you’ve never done it before, you need a safety pin or stitch marker to use. I use “jewelry” safety pins — that is, it’s a bag of pins I found in the “jewelry findings” aisle at Hobby Lobby. They don’t have a ring opposite the clasp, so there’s nothing to get caught in my yarn. I put a little bead at the end to make it cheerful.

Use a 4mm hook (G). I made a magic ring (which I absolutely can’t teach you how to do because I’m a hack at it myself! Google it!) and then sc 6 in the ring. At the end of each round I place my marker in the last stitch so I don’t lose my mind trying to count those stitches! Each round increases evenly by six. If you don’t know what that means, here is how I made mine:

Make a magic ring.
R1 – 6 sc in ring, place marker – 6
R2 – 6 sc inc, place marker – 12
R3 – sc inc, sc – repeat around, place marker – 18
R4 – sc inc, 2 sc – repeat around, place marker – 24
R5 – sc inc, 3 sc – repeat around, place marker – 30
R6 – sc inc, 4 sc – repeat around, place marker – 36
R7 – sc inc, 5 sc – repeat around, place marker – 42
R8 – sc inc, 6 sc – repeat around, place marker – 48
R9 – sc inc, 7 sc – repeat around, place marker – 54
R10 – sc around, sl join to previous row – 54
ch 10, sl join to next sc to form loop

The little lip fits nicely around a regular size coffee mug. I added a little leaf embellishment with some cotton from Hobby Lobby that I had scraps of. I don’t know a good way to write the pattern out so I just drew a chart. I hope this is self explanatory:

Once you sl join at the end of the leaf, just cut off a tail long enough to tie it to the coasters.

As you can see, the coasters have a kind of six-sided shape to them. This is because the way I wrote the pattern above, the increases occur on top of the increases from the previous row. This is just the easiest way for me to make this shape and not have to think or count very much (like when I’m vegging out and watching Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman on Netflix). But if you want your increases to be more hidden and the rounds to be more… round, you can stagger your increases. Like this:

Make a magic ring.
R1 – 6 sc in ring, place marker – 6
R2 – 6 sc inc, place marker – 12
R3 – sc inc, sc – repeat around, place marker – 18
R4 – sc, sc inc, sc – repeat around, place marker – 24
R5 – 2 sc, sc inc, sc – repeat around, place marker – 30
R6 – 2 sc, sc inc, 2 sc – repeat around, place marker – 36
R7 – 3 sc, sc inc, 2 sc – repeat around, place marker – 42
R8 – 4 sc, sc inc, 2 sc – repeat around, place marker – 48
R9 – 5 sc, sc inc, 2 sc – repeat around, place marker – 54
R10 – sc around, sl join to previous row – 54
ch 10, sl join to next sc to form loop

Now I *think* that might work, but I haven’t worked it up myself, so don’t hate on me if I accidentally didn’t bury those increases more evenly.

One ball of Sugar & Cream made four coasters with enough left over for probably two more. That’s a nice use of $1.50 if you ask me! Oh and here’s another tip, if you want to make a little bowl, just make several more rows of sc after R10. It’ll make a cute little dish and the cotton is quite sturdy! I’m going to get another ball of this yarn next time I’m grocery shopping to make a little box for them.

I’ve never  tried to write up a crochet pattern, so please let me know if anything is confusing or you know, wrong!

I recently got a bunch of little 4.5″ zippers and I became obsessed with figuring out how to make a little pouch with a zipper running down the middle. I knew I wanted to do something that would use up some scraps, so I wanted two patches on one side and the rest of the pouch made from linen. So now that I’ve got it figured out (and I’ve got four of these under my belt to get this far!), I figured I’d share it with you.

Here’s what you’ll need:

2 pieces of coordinating fabrics for the patches – 2.5″ x 3.25″ each
1 piece of linen (or another fabric for the body) – 6″ x 6.5″
2 pieces of muslin or lining fabric – 6″ x 4.5″
1 – 4.5″ zipper (the zipper part is 4.5 inches, the total length of the fabric around the zip should be about 6″)
Approximately 14″ of bias tape

I recommend you starch and iron your fabrics before you cut them — and if possible, use a rotary cutter to cut your fabrics. Of course you will need scissors and a sewing machine (see my sewing machine review here). Also, a fabric glue stick will make your life much, much easier!

You will sew with a .25″ seam allowance for the whole project. Good luck!

The first step is to put the two patches together and sew along one of the short ends (sew along the edges that are 2.5″ long).

Iron the patches open and put it right-side down against one of the lining pieces so they line up on the 6″ side. If your lining piece has a right/wrong side, put the right side together with the right side of the top fabric. Do the same with the linen piece.

Sew the patches to the lining and the linen to the other lining piece with a .25″ seam allowance. Turn and press.

Now you’re going to sew your zipper on. For this pouch, the zipper is not enclosed between the top fabric and lining, but rather sits neatly under them both. I have found this was the neatest way I could sew them. If I were sewing a pouch that had the zipper on top, I would have enclosed it, but for this pouch, this way just made the most sense.

Position the zipper underneath the 2-patch piece and muslin and sew down the top. Do the same with the linen.

Next open the zipper (this is IMPORTANT!). Put the right sides of the patches and linen together (pull them away from the lining fabric) and sew together with a .25″ seam allowance. You’ll have something that looks like this:

Take a picture of the little gremlin who is pestering you because he thinks the six-hundred dollar camera you’re holding is a toy and desperately wants to “Push but-ton?” and take “Pick-ture?”

Now put the right sides of the lining together (make sure your zipper is down!) and sew them together. Now turn the whole thing and you’ll come up with something like this:

You’ll notice that the top of the pouch seams along the side of the patches (which will be the side of the pouch) while the lining seams along the middle back of the pouch. This is because when I tried to seam both lining and top fabrics at the same place, it was too bulky in that spot when I attached the bias tape and turned. This method makes for much nicer corners on the finished pouch.

(You can also turn it so it’s right-side out at this point if you want to see how it’s going to look.)

Now, see that little metal piece at the end of each zipper? Using that as a guide, even up each side of the pouch so that there’s .5″ of material beyond that little metal piece. Use a rotary cutter if you have one.

Now snip off about 7″ of bias tape and baste it to each side of the pouch. Bias tape has an uneven fold so that there is more fabric on the back side of the tape. This is to make sure you catch the backside when you’re sewing. So make sure you put it on right!

I like to use a fabric glue stick when I apply bias tape. It makes it much easier to turn under the edges. To hide the end of the bias tape, fold it under from front to back and tuck it underneath on each side.

Now stitch the bias tape on. The closer you stitch to the edge of the bias tape, the neater the corners of your pouch will be. Turn your pouch and poke out your corners.

You’ll have to pull on your pouch and iron it a bit to get the shape right. The linen tends to pull funny. I bet it would work better with a lighter-weight fabric, actually.

Add a tassle with some linen scraps and tiny rick rack. Sit back and marvel at your ingenuity!

This is my first sewing tutorial, so let me know what you think! I’ll do my best to answer any questions you might have! I have some more photos of the finished pouch at my flickr page.

Since today is Sunday, you also get to see my Sunday Stash!

These are all fabrics I’ve gotten in swaps from the Craft Room Destash group on flickr. I love love them all. I think I’m going to make Freyja a little hat with the umbrellas and I see the Panda’s and the flowers becoming change purses.The flower fabric is actually my favorite fat quarter in my whole stash right now… so it just might be too painful to cut into it right now!

Enjoy the tutorial and let me know if you’d like me to post other tutorials in the future!

First off, WOW! I’m totally overwhelmed by the great comments and questions on my giveaway post! I’m going to compile everyone’s questions into a new massive FAQ and it’s seriously been very helpful! So thanks! There’s still time to enter too. I’ll close comments and pick a winner around lunchtime on Sunday (noon EST).

I thought I’d write up a tutorial on how to make a lacy flower pin, since I haven’t seen one posted yet. I can’t take credit for this idea though. I saw it used on fabric in a craft magazine (though I can’t recall which magazine it was in). All I did was apply the technique to lace! You can use this to make fabric flowers too — but you should use thinner fabric if you do.

The first step is to go to your local thrift shop and find a huge gallon ziplock bag of lace and trim for $1.

Got it? Good. You’ll also need thread and a needle (hand-sewing thread works the best). You’ll probably want to use thread that actually matches the lace you’re using. And you’ll need a pinback or safety pin and a bit of felt (I’m using some heavy sew-in interfacing here because I had a few scraps left from a bag project). If you want to embellish it with buttons or beads or whatever, you’ll need that too of course!

The first thing is to cut your lace so that you can visually divide it by five. Most lace that I’ve used for this has a “bumpy” side and a flat side. I count ten “bumps” and leave half a “bump” on each side to sew them together (does this make sense?). If you want to just mark your lace with a little fabric pen or something, that would work too. Just make sure you can easily divide it by five (or however many petals you want).

Start at the top of the lace (the bumpy side) and make a long running stitch down. You’ll be stitching U shapes. When you get to the top of the U, bring the needle around to the other side of the lace so it can pull the lace (see the picture because I obviously can’t explain this).

Keep going till you have made five U shapes and then start pulling the thread to gather the lace.

Eventually you’ll have something like this:

Use your needle and thread in the back of the flower to shape it nicely. You just have to play with it, adding a stitch here and there and seeing how the front is shaping up. You’ll want to push and pull on the petals with your fingers to get it nicely shaped too.

Sew your button on (if you want a button in the center).

Now is the time to embellish it with other lace, trims, ribbons, whatever. Just use your imagination and stitch them on the back of the pin.

Finally, sew a pinback onto a bit of felt and attach it to the back. Or just stab it with a safety pin. Honestly, I’ve done both!

Okay, so now that you’ve made one, you can just start gathering the lace while you’re sewing the U’s. The wider you make your U’s the bigger the petals will be:

Sit back and marvel at your creations. I put these on my hats and I’ve used them to dress up bags. They would make super cute headbands. I’m not really a broach kind of girl, but I’m sure you can make beautiful broaches with them too!

Please let me know if something wasn’t clear! And if you make any, leave a link to a photo for me to see!