Free Pattern: Blow-Flow Christmas Bowl

Pattern: Made in K-Town by Barbara

Please respect my rights as designer: do not sell, share, translate, or publish any parts of this pattern (including pictures) online or elsewhere without my permission. Do not claim this pattern as your own. Feel free to sell the finished items you’ve made from my pattern! If you do, a link-back to my blog www.made-in-k-town.blogspot.de would be great.
Thank you!

Material:

This bowl looks best if you use cotton yarn and a hook size that's a little smaller than recommended. With acrylic yarn and/or a too big hook, the fabric would probably be too soft and wobbly for its purpose.

Some general notes:

For this pattern I use US crochet terms. The basic stitches are chain stitches (ch), single crochet stitches (sc), and double crochet stitches (dc). All other stitches or abbreviations are explained in the pattern.

We start with The Bottom of the bowl and make a flat circle. Begin each round with a ch-1, and join rounds with a slip stitch.

1st Round: Start with a magic ring, ch-1, and work 6 sc’s inside the ring (6sc’s)

2nd Round: Work two sc’s in every stitch around (12 sc’s). Working two stitches in one sc is called an increase (=1 inc)

3rd Round: Repeat *1 sc, 1 inc* around (18 sc’s)

4th Round: Repeat *2 sc, 1 inc* around (24 sc’s)

5th Round: Repeat *3 sc, 1 inc* around (30 sc’s)

Continue this way, always increasing six stitches per round, until your circle has reached the desired size. To avoid a hexagon-shape, you should vary the spots where you work your increases from round to round. For example, you could start the sixth round with 2 sc’s, 1 inc, then repeat *4 sc’s, 1 inc* around, finishing with 2 sc’s.

I've made twelve rounds (72 sc's in the last round) until my circle had a size of 11cm (4.3").

When your circle has reached the perfect size, ch-1 and turn. Why turn? Because this way, when you look into the empty basket, you always see the right side (the pretty one) facing you.

Now continue with The Sides. Begin each round of the basic pattern with a ch-1, and join rounds with a slip stitch.

1st Round: work sc’s in every sc around (without increasing anymore), using the back loops only (BLO-sc’s)

2nd Round: work sc’s in every sc around, using the front loops only (FLO-sc’s)

Repeat those two rounds, until you’ve almost reached the desired height, ending with a FLO-round.

Next Round: Start with ch-3 (counts as the first dc) and then work dc's in every stitch around, again using the back loops only.

Last Round: ch-1, then repeat *(sc, ch-2, sc), skip the next stitch* around.

Your bowl should look similar to this now, and if you like it, you can leave it this way.

If you want to add The Bow, do it like this: pull the lose end of your contrasting yarn through the gap between two dc's, attach it with a slip knot to your hook,...

... pull more yarn to the front, and make a chain that's at least long enough to tie the bow later. (Remember, this is the front part of your bowl, so you should start at the opposite side from where you've started the rounds and where you can see the seam of the slip stitches!)

When your chain is long enough, bring your hook close to the bowl again, and start working surface stitches around. It's like working slip stitches: insert the hook in between the next two dc's, yarn over and pull through the gap and the loop on your hook.

Repeat around, placing your last stitch in the gap where you've started with your chain.

Then, pull some more yarn from back to front through the gap, enough to continue with your chain. Make the chain as long as the other one, and fasten off.

Now you can tie the bow and trim the chains: I just make a knot where I want to have the end and cut the rest off. This way I'm flexible with the length of the chain, and it doesn't look too bad. And here it is, the finished Blow-Flow Christmas Bowl:

I hope you've enjoyed making this bowl as much as I did, and if you've got any questions, or find errors in this pattern, please let me know!

I'd also like to see your finished bowls, so feel free to leave a comment with a link to your blog or flickr picture :)

Happy Ho-Ho-Holidays!! :)