Crochet Coaster with Fringe

I'm not exactly the definition of patient, so I knew that learning to crochet wouldn't be the easiest task for me. I decided I would give it a chance when my sister got really into it and started to crochet in all of her free time. I saw the benefits and decided that I too could make people personal, thoughtful gifts without breaking the bank. Only two materials are needed to crochet, yarn and a hook, making it simple to keep track of all supplies.


I chose to start off with a coaster because it seemed beginner friendly and visually appealing. With the fringe at the ends, it is a good looking and useful decoration for any table.


It all starts off with your grip of the hook. It should be held "like a table knife in your dominant hand" (Hardy 5). Once it was gripped I started off with a slip knot (as with most crochet) and began a simple chain of 14 loops. That chain forms the first side.

 

This is what my first chain looked like

I wish I could say that at this point I was through the hardest part, but that would be a lie. Not long after this I realized that since my yarn was a little messy, I had made a mistake and started from the wrong end of the yarn so I couldn't get anymore. Luckily for me I wasn't too far in and easily decided to restart.

Once I got back to where I was, it was time to turn my chain and start making it taller (as it was 14 chains wide and 1 chain tall). To do this you have to put your hook through the hole under the back ridge of your corresponding chain on the last row, hook the yarn you are feeding from, and pull it through both loops that are on your hook (Hardy 11). Now I was through the hardest part! After that it's just repeating the same process for each chain until I ran out and turned the chain around again. This process was repeated until I had a square.

The square isn't perfect, but if I expected perfection I wouldn't have ever been satisfied

Now that the bulk of the work was done, it was time for me to decorate with some fringe. I picked two opposite sides and started off pulling three equal length pieces of yarn through every other chin at the middle of the 3 strands, forming a loop. I then pulled the 6 loose ends through the loop making it as tight as possible (Hardy 16).

My finished product

Once again I kept repeating the process until I had used up all the available space, then switched to the opposite side. The end was just as functional and aesthetically pleasing as I ever hoped for (although it is a little small because I used slightly smaller yarn than the recommended)!

My first coaster hard at work supporting a bottle of water

If you could have anything that's possible to make made, what would you want someone to crochet for you?

Citation:

Hardy, Cathy. Learn to Crochet. Maumelle: Leisure Arts, 2014. Print.