Patterns! Unicorn Poop Coffee Cup Cozy & Heart Trivet

So, I decided I was going to make something for a friend of mine when I saw this absolutely awesome yarn at the store yesterday. The yarn is from Peaches and Cream. It is called Candy Sprinkles. It is a rainbow pastel space dyed cotton yarn typically used for washcloths. I used it to make a coffee cup cozy and a heart shaped trivet.

Now, the choice of cotton yarn may sound a little odd for a coffee cozy. This, however, is based in SCIENCE! A few years back, I was part of a group on Ravelry for science oriented yarn nerds. We did a casual study to figure out what type of yarn was most effective for retaining heat (and cold). There was no standardized pattern used. Everyone made their own patterns.

We had knitted material and crochet. I think someone did weave something too, but I'm not entirely sure. We all did samples from cotton, acrylic, and wool. Some used commercially produced yarn (ie from a company like Caron) and others used handspun yarn. I was one of the people who used commercially produced yarn. One thing that consistently was proven was that dry cotton did the best job for insulation. As a result, I now make my coffee cup cozies only with cotton.

This cozy is crochet. I used a sized F (3.75 mm) hook. The yarn is a size 4 yarn. The ribbon for the ties is rayon and 1 mm wide. This is a simple rectangle. I chained 44 stitches for my starting row. I then worked three rows of single crochet. After this, I worked 11 rows of Linen stitch (also known as Moss stitch or Granite stitch). I worked three rows of single crochet and then one row of slip stitch. Down the side of the rectangle, I did a chain of seven stitches and the slip stitched it into place at three intervals. I then did ten single crochets into each chain loop, doing a single crochet where each was fixed to the side of the cozy. I fastened off when I came back to the top edge where I started making my loops and wove my ends in. I then secured a three inch length of ribbon where each loop was at its greatest elongation over the other edge when it was against it. Each ribbon was slipped through a stitch and secured with a square knot. Then, the loop was laid over it and tied down with a simple bow.

The heart trivet was something I backwards engineered based off of something I saw on Pinterest. I then adapted it a little. In starting it again, I think I would use a foundation half double crochet instead of foundation single crochet. Aside from that, it was really straight forward.

Foundation row has seven stitches. First through fourth row have seven half double crochet. Fifth row has seven half double crochet and then I chained seven stitches. Next five rows has fourteen half double crochet. I then did two rows of single crochet around the edging, starting at the bottom point. At each outward pointing corner, I did three single crochet in the point of the corner. At the inward pointing corner, I did a decrease on the first row and then a slip stitch on the second row. I slip stitched the end stitches of the two rows to the first stitches of the row (the slip stitch being the third of that cluster for the corner). I wove in my ends and this was the result.