Coasters in 316 Stitches - free pattern

I love this pattern for making coasters. They are very quick and easy to make. I made this set of four coasters all in one evening. The free pattern, Oval Table Lace Placemat and Coaster, is by Red Heart.

We needed a few new coasters for our breakfast nook table, and I thought this set made in Lily Sugar N Cream cotton in the Faded Denim colorway would look nice.

These coasters are made with a mere five rounds, and just for fun I counted up the total number of stitches as being 316 per coaster.

I also made these coasters back in 2012.

Circle Hot Pad pattern - totally giftable

I consider myself a tight crocheter, but I did have to go down two hook sizes to match the designer's gauge on this Circle Hot Pad by Esther Thompson. As she said, gauge isn't very important for this potholder/trivet, but you do want to have a nice firm fabric to protect surfaces or your hands from the heat. This was very quick to make and is so cute and totally giftable. The Hobby Lobby Crafter's Secret Cotton in the Desert Gold colorway looks modern and chic. There is a free version of this pattern on the designer's website.

I added a hanging loop by chaining 10 at the end of the last round, slip stitching the chain to the trivet next to where I started chaining, then turning and working 20 SC's back over the chain. A 1-inch wooden or metal ring sewn to the trivet would also look nice as a hanging loop. 

There was also just enough of the main color (Desert Gold) left to make a coordinating 4-inch-diameter coaster in 6 rounds. I made it double-layered like the trivet, but for the coaster I slip stitched it together with the ivory yarn for a bit of contrast on the colorful side. 

The multicolored balls of this Crafter's Secret cotton are 57 grams, whereas the solid color balls are 71 grams. So, using the solid color as the contrast color for this project, you have enough of the solid color to make two trivets (if you don't use any to make a coaster, the way I did).

I gifted the colorful trivet set to my niece Renee, and I made another set to give to my sister Juanita in the Hobby Lobby Crafter's Secret Cotton in the more neutral-looking colorway called The City.

Placemats and coasters for the RV

I wanted to make a set of two placemats and two coasters for us to use when we were camping in our RV. Initially I used the free pattern from Red Heart for their Oval Placemat and Coaster.

Each of these placemats used about 105 grams of Lily Sugar 'n Cream worsted weight cotton yarn in the Country Side Ombre colorway.

After blocking, I wasn't able to get the placemat edges to lie flat, so I ended up cannibalizing the yarn to make my Simple Vertical Stripe Placemats instead, which ended up with interesting and unexpected plaid patterns due to the yarn color pooling. Totally an accident on my part; I didn't know beforehand that this yarn would do that.

The coasters do lie nice and flat, though, so I'm very happy with them.

I wrote up a free pattern on Ravelry for how I made these Simple Vertical Striped Placemats, but I wasn't able to explain in the pattern how to achieve the plaid pooling effect because -- again -- I don't know exactly how it happened. You can see in my above photo that the plaid effect you get depends on where in the color sequence you begin working. The one on the left turned out much closer to an argyle effect than the one on the right. If you want to attempt it, I wish you good luck and happy crocheting!!