It’s jewelry -– or an altar cloth as the case may be -– for your coffee maker. Every morning it says “I love me” better than a thermal carafe model. Crocheted of colored wire and glass beads, this project is a good introduction to jewelry-making and the special properties of metal.
Ed. Note: Please use common sense. If the wire you use is plastic-coated or if you're using beads, do remove the doily from the heating element before using your coffee maker. If in doubt, use the doily as a trivet only, and do not use it in your coffee maker.
NOTE: open package carefully; wire on a reel is like a coiled spring! It helps to wrap a twist tie or cord through the reel’s core and join it over the wire so that the unreeling is slightly impeded. Leave it in place while crocheting too.
A standard Mr. Coffee hotplate measures 3.75 inches in diameter inside its lipped edge; minimalists will prefer 5 rows of pattern, which will elegantly rest just inside the edge. The rest of us take the beaded edging option (Row 6); the fringe loops are long enough to hang over the edge of the hotplate so that they don’t interfere too much with sliding the coffeepot in and out. The fringe row is about 1 inch high for a total diameter of about 5.5 inches.
7½ double crochets = 1 inch and 4 rows = 1 inch. Tug on your stitches a bit both vertically and horizontally before measuring.
If this is your first time crocheting wire, congratulations on entering the unique world of metalworking! This project will be good practice because it’s all double crochets. Your first stitches are likely to be loose and irregular and messy-looking. Here are some tips:
- Try looping the wire around an additional finger for more tension. Try to make tight stitches and small contained movements.
- Think of wire as crochet thread that already has the starch in it because when you’re done crocheting, you can tell the stitches what to do, and they will behave. Don’t worry if the shape of your doily is bent, crooked, rippled, amateur, or otherwise hopeless. There’s no way it will look neat and even and flat while you’re gripping it to work the stitches. It will shape up when you discipline it with the flattening tool of your choice at the completion of row 5 (before you add beads). Shape the stitches by nudging and poking them with your hook.
- You must use 28 gauge wire. Do not substitute with the next larger size (26 gauge). It just takes practice and little rest periods because it uses new muscles that other kinds of crocheting don’t require. It’s more important than usual to avoid hunching your shoulders as you work. (If you really have trouble with the 28 gauge, experiment with 30 gauge.)
- If you find that you use one of your fingertips as a backing when trying to poke the hook through a stitch, wear a thimble or band-aid on that finger for cushioned support.
- Assume that you can’t rip out mistakes. Sometimes you can without breaking the wire, but you will still be weakening it. It’s best to leave tiny kinks in the wire; trying to remove them stresses the wire. Wire is weird because it’s so strong that you have to manhandle it, but it can snap, so you have to baby it at the same time. If the wire does break, it matters more when you crochet wire jewelry than with this project, so don’t worry. Twist together the broken ends and keep going. With some wire projects you don’t need to weave in a long tail, just try to keep ends from popping up and feeling prickly or snagging things (especially important with jewelry items).
- The turning chain-3 counts as 1 dc.
- All stitches are worked into the top 2 loops of the row below.
US pattern conventions used
ch = chain
sl st = slip stitch
dc = double crochet
st(s) = stitch(es)
rep = repeat
Instructions
If you will be adding the beaded edging as shown in the photo, string all beads now. String them in the opposite order that you’ll be using them. Either you can just string on a zillion, or you can be scientific about it and figure that 63 looped fringes will need beads. In the model, I just always made sure that I put a big red bead at the tip of the fringe, a couple of little beads on either side of it, and a couple more at the base of it. So I began stringing like this: *2 or 3 little beads, 1 big red, 4 or 5 little (includes 2 for the base of fringe loop), repeat sequence from * 62 times. Push all the beads way down the line because you won’t need them for 5 rows.
Ready?
Row 1 *Double crochet into each of the next 6 chains; 2 dc in next ch. Rep from * around, slip stitch to top of ch-3: 34 stitches (remember that the ch-3 counts as a dc). Chain 3, turn.
Row 2 *Double crochet into each of the next 4 sts; 2 dc in next st. Rep from * around, slip stitch to top of ch-3: 40 sts. Chain 3, turn.
Row 3 Dc in the next st, *2 dc in the next, dc in each of the next 4 sts. Rep from * around, sl st to top of ch-3: 48 stitches. Ch 3, turn.
Row 4 Dc in each of the next 4 sts, 2 dc in the next, *dc in each of the next 5 sts; 2 dc in next st. Rep from * around, sl st to top of ch-3: 56 stitches. Ch 3, turn.
Row 5 Dc in each of the next 4 sts, *2 dc in the next, dc in each of the next 6 sts. Rep from * around, sl st to top of ch-3: 64 stitches. Tug on stitches evenly all around and flatten evenly with mallet, rolling pin, etc. Stretch and flatten until it lays flat. You can fasten off now, but if you really want to treat yourself (and show off to knitters), chain 3, turn, and continue to Row 6.
Row 6 (beaded loop fringe edging) Two special abbreviations will be used to indicate when a stitch is beaded:
“bdc” = Beaded Double Crochet (yarn over, insert hook in stitch and pull up loop, yarn over, pull through 2 loops, slide 2 small beads up close to hook, yarn over, pull through all loops on hook to lock beads into top of the double crochet; 1 bdc made.)
“bch” = Beaded Chain Stitch (pull up a bead close to hook then make a chain stitch as usual, locking bead into the stitch; 1 bch made.)
Dc in next st, bdc in same st (1 increase made); ch 4, bch with the 2 or 3 little beads you strung before a big red one; bch with big bead, bch with 2 or 3 small beads, ch 4, sl st in top of same bdc (1 fringe loop just made), {*bdc in next st, 1 fringe loop: ch 4, bch with little beads, bch with a big bead, bch with little beads, ch 4, sl st in top of same bdc*. Rep from * to * 6 times, dc in the next st, bdc in same st, 1 fringe loop}. Rep pattern in {} brackets all around: 73 dc and 64 fringe loops made. Fasten off.
Finishing
Pull each fringe loop to its full length; if you like this hippie look, leave it. If you then grasp their sides and pull each loop apart so that they are overlapping ovals, it will look more like the one pictured.
