Crochet Bowl Tutorial

Hello Lovelies,
here is my photo tutorial for crocheting a bowl like the ones above.
First lets talk yarn. For this project you will preferably need some cotton yarn or similar. Stretchy or woolly yarn will not have the strength to allow the bowl to maintain its shape. This is my random selection of cottons and cotton blend yarns. I think there is some bamboo in there also. I've gathered these from reduced bins .
For that reason I don't have much of each colour .But for this project that doesn't matter at all..........

The next thing to consider is hook size. Even though I'm working with two strands of yarn held together I have still only used a 4.00 mm crochet hook (there is a good hook size conversion chart here if you need it )
This means the finished bowl will be quite tightly worked and therefore more rigid than if you chose a bigger hook. This is important to avoid a floppy bowl .
If you are struggling with a small hook going up a size will probably be ok. It all depends on the thickness of your yarn,

This bowl is made in a continuous spiral so even though I'm writing about rounds there is no start and finish point to each round and it is important to have a stitch marker ( I use a safety pin ) to remember where each round begins and ends.

This tutorial is for 6 inch bowl....the biggest size I've made (on the left in ths picture above )
At the end of this tutorial are instructions for making the smaller sizes .


So lets make a start shall we. As usual I'm writing this in U.S. crochet terms.(sc = single crochet)

Holding two strands together make a slip knot in the normal way....

Next chain 2........

Insert hook in the first chain........

Round 1 Make 6 single crochet into the same chain. In this picture I've made 1 sc....

Here I've made all 6 and you can see how the chain stitch has opened up .......

To close the hole simply pull the tail ends of yarn till your work looks like this.......

Round 2 Next make 2 sc in each of the 6 stitches of round 1.If you are not sure where to start it helps to count back from your hook :0)......

When you have completed that round you should have 12 stitches .....

Round 3 Make the first stitch of round 3 then mark this with a stitch marker......

Make another sc into the same stitch the 1sc into the next stitch. Continue around till you reach the stitch marker repeating the 2sc,1sc pattern . You should now have a total of 18 stitches........

At this point I have changed the colour of one of my strands of yarn by cutting the yarn about 10" from the work and knotting on another colour. Remember to leave long enough tails to weave in at the end....

When you reach the knot encourage it to be on the wrong side of your work. If it ends up on the right side pull the tails to move it to the wrong side.

Round 4 This is a repeat of round 3 ...2sc in the first stitch, 1 sc in the next stitch, and repeat around (27 stitches)
 Every round it important to remove the stitch marker and then reinsert it into the first stitch of the next round .
Round5 This round is 2sc in the first stitch then 1sc in each of the next 2 stitches. Repeat this pattern around ( 36 stitches)
Round 6  2sc in the first stitch followed by 1sc in each of the next 3 stitches. Repeat around.(45 stitches)
In this picture I am just getting going on round 6 and you can see I've attached a new yarn colour....cutting the colour I've been using since the start and attaching a new colour......

This is the end of round 6......

Round 7 This is predictably...2sc in first stitch,1 sc in each of the next 4 stitches ,repeat around.
Round 8 You have reached the last increase round ...Yay...it's 2sc in first stitch then 1sc in each of the next 5 stitches, repeat around.

Here is where it's going to get a whole lot easier :0)
Throw away you stitch marker (not literally ) and just sc in each stitch . This will eventually begin to make the sides . It will take a couple of rounds  before this starts to happen . In this picture you can see I just have a floppy circle........

Remember to change colours using the method above when ever you like

Here I have done about 3 rounds of sc and my bowl is just beginning to turn up at the edges ( the wrong way ! ) .........

Here I've worked a bit further and the sides are beginning to grow. I've encouraged it to turn the right way out .....

Then it's just a case of repeating the sc 's around and changing colours to your taste. You can make the sides as high as you prefer. .....

Once you are happy with the height simply fasten off the ends and weave in .
Here is the inside once I've sewn in all the pesky ends...A boring job but it doesn't take too long........

And you end up with a colourful beauty like this ......

Of course you could stick with the same two colours all the way through , this would look pretty too .

This bowl measures 6 inches or 15cm across.
To make a smaller bowl simply stop increasing sooner.
The smallest of my 3 bowls measures 4 inches and I stopped increasing after round 6.
The middle sized bowl (on the right in the first picture ) has higher sides but measures 5 1/2 inches across. For this size I stopped increasing after round 7 .

I hope all this is easy to understand....any problems , please let me know :0)
Enjoy :0)
Jacquie x

P.S. till the end of Sept '11 you can win one of these lovelies, just leave me a comment on the previous post.