Everything about this pattern, before you pay for it
Most pattern listings tell you after. Here is the whole spec.
| What it is | A written crochet pattern, delivered as a PDF. The file itself is titled The Ghost Who Floats Under Your Mug. |
| What you make | A granny-square coaster with a little ghost in the middle: a white circle of double crochet turned square in green, a row of three scallops for the ghost’s hem, a stitched black face, and a small bow on top of its head. |
| Finished size | About 12 cm (4¾ in) square. |
| Hook | 3.0 mm — the only hook in the pattern. |
| Yarn | 5-ply combed cotton, about a DK weight, in four colours: white for the circle and the hem, green for the square, and short lengths of black for the face and purple for the bow. Any colour that stands out against the white works for the bow. |
| Yarn needed | About 6 g (15 yd) of white and 11 g (25 yd) of green, plus about a metre of black for the face and a short length for the bow. |
| Time to make | About 1 hour. |
| Skill level | Confident beginner, which is what the pattern itself says: joined rounds, a granny square, working into free loops, and a little embroidery. |
| Techniques used | Magic ring · joined rounds, closing each one where it began · chain, slip stitch, single crochet, half double crochet and double crochet · the double crochet increase · several stitches into one stitch or one space · skipping stitches to open the spaces of a granny square · closing a round with a sewn join · crocheting into loops an earlier round left free · a small piece made from chain loops · backstitch, and sewing a small piece on · changing colour for each new part · weaving in ends |
| Worked in | Joined rounds. Rounds 1 to 3 start with a stacked first stitch — ch 1, sc, ch 1 — which counts as a double crochet and leaves a far less visible seam than a chain. Rounds 4 to 6 start with ch 2, which does not count. Rounds 3 and 6 close with a sewn join instead of a slip stitch, so the join does not show. |
| Number of pieces | Two: the square (the circle, the green rounds and the hem are one piece) and the bow. |
| Numbered rounds | 6 — three for the circle, three for the square. The hem, the face and the bow are written out step by step instead. |
| Count checkpoints | Four: 36 stitches at the end of round 3; at the end of round 4, all 36 used with nine along each side; 3 groups a side at the end of round 5; 4 groups a side at the end of round 6. |
| The round that turns it square | Round 4 goes into the front loop of each round 3 stitch together with the strand just behind it, which keeps the square flat. Every side is written out — [dc, hdc], 2 hdc, 3 sc, 2 hdc, [hdc, dc] — so you can count one side against the line before you go on. |
| The hem | Three scallops of six double crochets, worked into 13 of the white loops round 4 left free and centred on the bottom of the circle. Slip stitches pulled hard between them pinch each scallop out. |
| The face | One line of black backstitch on the circle. The pattern gives the stitch and where it starts and finishes; the shape follows the photo. |
| The last round | A classic granny round: 4 groups of 3 double crochet along each side, and 3 dc, ch 2, 3 dc at each corner. |
| Sewing | The bow only, sewn to the top of the head with its own tail. |
| Also needed | One stitch marker, a blunt yarn needle and scissors. |
| Pages | 19 |
| Terminology | US crochet terms |
| Language | English |
| Left-handed | Written for you too. Work it exactly as written and your coaster comes out a mirror image of the photos. Two places read differently, and the pattern names both: round 4’s first corner is the top left rather than the top right, and the hem’s loops are counted to the right of the middle one. |
| Delivery | Download link on the confirmation page and in your email, straight away. |
Counted twice
My grandmother taught me on her porch, and she said the same thing every time I tangled the yarn: slow down, count twice, rip it out if it’s wrong — there’s no shame in starting over.
So every pattern in this shop gets counted twice. Once when it’s written. Then again, before it goes on sale: every round is re-added, stitch by stitch, and checked against the round before it.
That’s the whole thing. It’s not clever. It is just the step almost nobody takes, because until a pattern is written down properly you can’t take it — and because nobody was ever asked to show their working.
I’m asking to show mine.
The worst thing a pattern does is not be difficult. It is to be wrong early, so that you find out several rounds later and spend the next twenty minutes wondering whether it was you. It usually wasn’t you. But you can’t tell, and that not-being-able-to-tell is the part that makes people put the hook down.
On a granny square like this one, the likeliest place for that is round 4, where the circle turns square. If one side takes eight of the circle’s stitches and the next takes ten, the corners drift, and you usually only see it a round later, when the square won’t sit flat. So round 4 ends on a placement checkpoint rather than a single number: every one of round 3’s 36 stitches used, nine along each side, and the side written out so you can count one against it.
Counted twice means you can tell. No more counting the same round for the third time, writing it out on paper to make it add up, and still not knowing whether it’s you or the pattern. The count in the pattern is right. If yours doesn’t match it, the slip is in the round you just made — undo that one round and carry on.
You probably have one project in a bag somewhere, stopped at a round you can still name. Often it stopped on a count that wouldn’t come out. Every count in this one comes out, which leaves you the part you came for: finishing it, and handing it to someone without an apology.
Here is a real page of it
A pattern that was never crocheted can show you a photograph. It cannot show you a page. 
That green box is the checkpoint at the end of round 4, where the circle turns square. It tells you what should be in front of you before you carry on, and what to count if a corner has landed in the wrong place. This is page 12 of the 19 you get, and it is the same page you will be reading with a hook in your hand.
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