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 Tulip Coaster. |
| What you make | A round coaster in three colours: a flat cream centre of double crochet, a round of green V’s, and 24 pink puff stitches standing in the V’s like a ring of closed tulips. |
| Finished size | About 11 cm (4¼ in) across the tulips. The cream centre is about 8.5 cm (3⅓ in). |
| How long it takes | About 1 hour. |
| Hook | 3.0 mm — the hook the pattern names. With 5-ply milk cotton, the coaster comes out at about 11 cm. A thinner yarn on a smaller hook makes a smaller coaster; the counts never change. |
| Yarn | 5-ply milk cotton, about a US DK weight, in three colours: cream for the centre, green for the V’s and pink for the tulips. Use the same weight for all three — each round is counted against the one before it, so a heavier yarn in one of them changes the shape, not just the size. The photos show other colourways — pink on yellow, yellow on cream, blue on yellow. The colours are yours; these are the ones the pattern is written in. |
| Yarn needed | About 8 g (15 yd) of cream, 4 g (10 yd) of green and 5 g (10 yd) of pink — about 17 g (35 yd) in all. |
| Skill level | Confident beginner, which is what the pattern itself says: joined rounds, double crochet increases, and one puff stitch. |
| Techniques used | Magic ring · joined rounds, closing each one where it began · chain, slip stitch and double crochet · the double crochet increase · the puff stitch · several stitches into one stitch · skipping a stitch · working into a space rather than into a stitch · changing colour for a new round · weaving in ends |
| Worked in | One piece, in joined rounds, with a new colour for round 5 and again for round 6. Rounds 1 to 4 start with a chain 2 that is not a stitch; round 5 starts with a chain 3 that is — you put a marker in it, because that is where the round closes. The pattern sets both out before round 1, and says what each mix-up costs. |
| The centre | Four rounds of cream double crochet — 12, 24, 36, 48 — in twelve groups, each round adding one plain stitch to the group: round 2 is all increases, round 3 a plain stitch and an increase, round 4 a plain stitch, an increase and another plain stitch. |
| The V’s | Round 5, in green. A V is two double crochets with a chain 1 between them, all worked into one stitch; then one stitch is skipped. That makes 24 V’s round the 48, each with a small hole in the middle. |
| The tulips | Round 6, in pink. A puff in the hole of every V — 24 of them — with a chain 2 either side, and a slip stitch into the gap between one V and the next. The round never goes into a stitch. Each finished puff can be pushed out from the back so it stands proud of the rim. |
| The puff | Four unfinished half double crochets in one hole, each pulled up long and to the same height, with the yarn running loose; then drawn through together, the hook pushed up, and locked with one last pull-through. The pattern says what each step is for — that last pull-through is what makes a puff stand out from the fabric instead of collapsing into it. |
| Sewing and glue | None. The tulips are worked straight into the green round, and the coaster is one piece. The needle is only for weaving in ends. The pattern ends with an optional woven label on the back. |
| Ends | The starting tail is crocheted over in round 2. Each colour’s tail goes through to the back as you cut it, and the knot where the green joins sits behind the tulips. The rest are woven in once, at the end, each into its own colour. |
| Where it goes wrong | The pattern has a short section on the five places this coaster goes wrong — carrying round 3’s rhythm into round 4, counting the starting chain that isn’t a stitch (or not counting the one that is), forgetting the skip on round 5, working a puff into a stitch instead of a hole, and closing a puff too tight — and what each one does to the coaster. |
| Count checkpoints | Three: 12 double crochets at the end of round 1; 24, in twelve pairs, at the end of round 2; and 48, in twelve groups of four, at the end of round 4, with what six too many means. Rounds 5 and 6 follow from the 48: a V in every other stitch makes 24, and a tulip in every V makes 24. |
| Also needed | A stitch marker, a yarn needle and scissors. A woven label for the back, if you like. |
| Pages | 15 |
| Printing | The instructions are real text, not pictures of text — so you can search them, copy them, enlarge them, or have them read aloud. |
| 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. The tulips go one to a V, so they come out the same either way. |
| Delivery | Download link on the confirmation page and in your email, straight away. |
Real crochet, captured while it was being made
You have learned to zoom in on a listing photo looking for stitches that don’t join up. You should — the shops selling patterns behind pictures that were never crocheted are real, and there are a lot of them.
So here is the unglamorous version: the cream centre at the end of its fourth round, still on the hook; the green round of V’s going on round its edge; and the pink tulips sitting in the V’s, a tail of pink yarn still loose among them. Every one of these was captured while the piece was actually being made.
The tulips are the ones to look at. Each one is a single puff — long loops pulled up in the hole of a green V, then drawn together — and you can see the loops in every one. They are worked straight into the V’s, so there is no flower to make separately and sew on.
Nothing on this page is an AI-generated coaster.
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 rounds later and spend the next twenty minutes wondering whether it was you.
On this coaster, that place is round 4, and it is there because of round 3. Round 3 goes a plain double crochet, then an increase, twelve times over, and by the end of it your hand has a two-stitch rhythm. Round 4 adds a third stitch to the group — plain, increase, plain. Carry the old rhythm on and the round comes out six over, 54 instead of 48, and the V’s and the tulips are built on the wrong number. So round 4 gets its own checkpoint, and the checkpoint says what six too many means rather than leaving you to work it out.
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 box is the one place this coaster is easiest to get wrong. Round 4 is where the group grows from two stitches to three, and a hand still in round 3’s rhythm finishes six over. So the box gives you the number you should have — 48, in twelve groups of four — and then tells you what six too many means: round 3’s group, carried all the way round. This is page 11 of the 15 you get, and it is the same page you will be reading with a hook in your hand.
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