Free Christmas Potholder Pattern

Christmas is fast approaching and maybe like us you have a long list of people to get gifts for or you just like to feel the Christmas spirit in all rooms and decorate like crazy (also like us). Anyway we have a Christmas tree potholder you can easily make in time for Christmas. We made the star in yellow, but you can make the potholder in a single colour. We recommend making the backside in an accenting colour so that the motif is seen.

As with Multe the rabbit potholder you start with making 50+3 as the starting chain.

1. Then start on the edge, that is the black part, the three chains counts as your first dc, then dc into all the remaining stitches. This should give you 50 dc stitches.

2. Chain three, turn, and dc into the next two stitches, *chain one and skip one stitch, dc into the next*, Repeat ** until you come to the first black squares (ten squares= 9 dc's and 10 chains), then make 7 dc's, this will make the trunk of your three, you then make another chain one, dc one, until there are three stitches left, chain one and skip one stitch, then dc into each stitch.

3. Now we are making the three, this pattern is the same from both sides so it is easy to follow, you don't have to remember what side you are on every time you turn. You start by making the frame, chain 3, make two dc's, then chain one, skip one stitch, dc again, chain, then you make 39 dc's, chain one, dc one, chain one, dc one and chain again. Now make the last three dc's that make the frame.

4. Turn and continue to follow the chart. 

After row 25 you cut the yarn and fasten off.

How to make the star in an other colour, we added the yellow in the last loop of the preceding stitch and let the green trail behind, don't forget the green stitch between the two yellow stitches in the first row of the star. Then we continued with the green and left the yellow until the second row, there we did the same and let the green trail behind. Because we are adding a backside to pur potholder it does not matter if the backside of the potholder looks a bit messy. Continue like this over all the rows of the star and make the last row in only green.

              

The backside is made in hdc stitches and made to fit the other side of the potholder, your stitches here will probably differ from mine and the first side since we are using a different stitch, so make sure you measure. When you have made it to fit, don't cut the yarn if you are using the same colour to crochet your potholder together. I crocheted mine together using sc all around the first and sc, chain, sc in the corners. When I had fastened it all together I made the loop by chaining 10 and fastening it to the corner and then I made 15 sc into the ring. Cut yarn and fasten off.

Halloween, trick or treat

Another Halloween post with another Halloween pattern, this one too for cross-stitching, the others can be viewed here; Halloween crochet pattern and Halloween cross-stitch sign pattern.

We are waiting anxiously for Halloween, it seems our party will be quite late this year, but as always we will have a small party with friends. Any excuse to get dressed up and have a ball. We have stocked up with treats for little ones who ring our doorbell too. Gacha Vilje had a bad dream the other day where her husband had accidentally eaten all the Halloween candy for the kids and Gacha Vilje was furious, they did have a whole drawer full of chocolate from when it was on sale and husband ate the Halloween candy! There were wrappers everywhere on the floor and husband was happily eating and hadn't noticed the candy was for Halloween! Luckily it was only a dream, but Gacha Vilje made sure to tell her husband that candy was not for adult eating, she thinks he gets it.

English version:

Trick or Treat 

            

Norwegian Version:

Knask eller Knep

                 

Happy Halloween!

 Let us know what you are going as, we were thinking of having a pirate party since we have a cut out  cardboard (almost) life sized Jack Sparrow in our store room.

Link to pdf of Knask and Trick.

Halloween Pumpkin Crochet Pattern for free

The Gacha-girls were busy thinking about what kind of Halloween patterns they wanted to do, and one of them suggested they make some cross-stitch patterns, so they did, but one pattern proved a bit difficult and they decided to leave it for another time. Then Gacha-Vilje thought, what if we just use the pumpkin part and make it into a crochet piece? She hurriedly found her stash and in that stash one lonely ball of orange yarn lay, so she picked it up and started to convert the cross-stitch pattern into a crochet pattern. 

When you do filet-crochet you can easily use pixelated pictures to make your crochet piece, like I did.

In filet crochet you make a mesh-like crochet piece with holes (usually one dc and one chain stitch  and skip one stitch or one dc and two chains and skip two stitches) and places which are filled with dc's. Using just those two stitches you can make a whole little picture. The black parts in the diagram are the parts that consists of dc-stitches and the white holes are the dc one, chain one and skip one stitch part where it looks like a mesh.

I did mine as a picture and hung it on the wall, but you can make a table runner or a curtain or door-sign, your imagination is the limit. The holes in the sides are perfect to pull a string through for an even more festive feel, I used some purple I had left from last Christmas.

You can also choose not to do the border part but then you have to calculate how many starting chains you need.

Gauge is not important in this pattern, use the hook specified on your chosen yarn and remember the size of the finished product will be smaller or larger depending on your yarn and your personal gauge.

I used Søstrene Grene's cotton yarn and hook 3. My finished piece measures 36x46 cm.

As a table cloth.

and I made a little bow at the end.

My finished version is a little bit different than the pattern because after I made mine I wanted the teeth to show more and the letters to slide a bit to the side. But you do as you please.

If I had more yarn I would have made both versions and made a long table runner, but I only had one ball of yarn and some leftovers, 66 grams of yarn in total and 36x46 cm.

I started with 83+3 chains to make my Pumpkin picture.

If you want to make it into a table runner simply print out this picture and start one on side and crochet back and forth until you reach the end, you can make the English or Norwegian version or both. 

English version.

Enjoy our free pattern.

Happy Halloween!

Free Halloween Cross Stitch Chart

It is October even though gacha Vilje keeps thinking it is still September, and almost Halloween! We love Halloween here at GachaStitches and so we designed a little Halloween sampler for you to enjoy while you wait for Halloween to arrive. 

We are trying to design another little Halloween thing for you so that the wait will seem shorter. So please keep checking in.

The design is made for 14 count aida, 160 x 64 stitches and uses only 6 colours with both symbols and colour chart which makes it easy to substitute whatever colour you like...

Happy Halloween!

Making of Harens Saganatt

When we here at gacha-stitches finished the V for finurlig pattern and published the pattern we were suddenly hit by inspiration and started on our next pattern. A bunny-baby blanket, Harens saganatt was born. Haren is Norwegian for the hare and Saganatt means night of fables so the name will be the hare's night of fable which we think suits a baby blanket perfectly.
The blanket can be used for sleeping as well as playing so we thought night suited the sleeping part and fables for playing as well as sweet dreams. And hares just because half of gachastitches is bunny crazy.

There may be more saganatts patterns later, after all the other part of gachastitches is crazy about cats, dragons and other woodland creatures...

we had some yarn left from V for finurlig and started crocheting right away!

On the drawing board                                                           We made ten different hares so you can choose which hare to crochet

We digitalised the pattern into a chart 

and then we made the blanket in full and started on edges.

Harens saganatt coming soon!

Multe the Filet Crochet Bunny free pattern

idea and pattern by Vilje and tweaking and supervising by *Kio

Here at Gacha in Stitches we have been busy this summer and even though summer is over and autumn is upon us, we are almost finished with another pattern we wanted you to have a little freebie. Our next pattern is a crochet baby blanket with bunnies, and we wanted to give you one of the bunnies for free so that you can make something while you wait for the actual pattern.

We have made the bunny into a potholder.

Introducing Multe of Harens Saganatt.

Crocheted back and forth in filet crochet.

Chain 50+3 to start crocheting Multe. 

1. Then you start on the edge, that is the black part, the three chains counts as your first dc, then dc into all the remaining chain stitches. This should give you 50 dc stitches.

2. Chain three, turn, and dc into the next two stitches, *chain one and skip one stitch dc into the next*. Repeat ** until there are two stitches left, dc into each stitch.

3. Repeat round 2.

4. Now we are starting the bunny, look at the diagram of the bunny on the right, we are starting with the back legs, 

Chain three and turn, dc into the next two stitches, *chain, skip one and dc into next stitch*, *to* four times, chain (this is the square before Multe's hind leg, since there are five squares there will be five chains but only four dc's). Then make 13 dc's. Chain one and dc two times and chain one again. Dc nine times (this is the front legs). Chain and dc four times, chain and dc into the last three stitches again. (This is the black spaces that is the edge of the bunny.) Turn.

5.Now we will look at the diagram on the left side again. Just follow the diagram of Multe, remember to alternate between the left and the right bunny depending on which row you are at.

Now you could use this pattern to make many different things, we have made it into a potholder, but you can make a bunny blanket for babies or a table cloth or put it in a frame and hang it on the wall.

Do tell us if you make one into something fun! Share it on Instagram if you'd like! #GachaStitches

For the potholder we need a solid backside so that we do not burn our hands when using it because that would kind of defeat the purpose of a potholder. I chained 46 (But you might need another number of stitches depending on your gauge, remember it needs to be as big as the front and divisible by three) I then made hdc-stitches back and forth until it was as long as the front. When I had done that I made sc into each stitch at the top and made 45 stitches down the side and at the bottom and the last side. 

Edge: I made three chains and two dc into the same stitch, *I then skipped two stitches and sc into the third, into the same stitch I made three dc*, continue with ** until the end of the row. This row should be divisible by three, so I made 15 repeats on each side. Slip stitch into first chain of the round, here I added the handle, I made my handle with seven chains at one corner and turned and made sc into each stitch I then cut and fastened the thread and you are done with the back. *Kio made shell stitches on her potholder so that is also an option. I chose to sew my back into the front part, but you could crochet them together if you choose to, and then I was done. *Kio sc her sides together before adding her border. There are many ways to make a potholder, choose whichever you like the most.

I have used one of the other bunnies in the next pattern here, but Multe is in yellow so you can see how she looks. Multe is Norwegian and is a yellow orange berry called cloudberry in English.

Don't forget our competition, maybe it is you who wins a lovely set of wrist warmers and a free pattern.

I love summer, but autumn is my real favourite season, with the colder clear days and drinking tea inside with my crochet listening to the rain outside might just be my favourite thing about autumn.

 - Vilje and her two bunnies

V for Finurlig more edges and a contest!

Remember our pattern V for finurlig?

We have designed some more edges that fits our V for finurlig wrist warmers so that you have more choices for your accessorises. 

Remember this is just an add on pattern to the V for Finurlig wrist warmers that you can buy here:

The red has picots on the top while the yellow has some nice shell stitches, which one do you like?

Guess which hand *Kio owns and which hand Vilje owns, we will randomly select a winner with the right answer who will win the pattern and a set of finished wrist warmers!

Tip: if you think the edging is a bit too floppy try switching to a smaller hook.

Picot edge:

Round 1: Start by joining together your wrist warmers. 

Round 2: Then make sc in all the stitches from the previous round, including the joining stitch, slip st  in first stitch.

Round 3: 4 sc, picot (3 chains, sc into the same stitch as the fourth sc), * 4 sc, picot*. Repeat ** to the end, slip stitch into the first stitch.

Fasten off and weave in ends.

Shell stitches edge:

Round 1: First you join together the wrist warmers.

Round 2: Then make sc in all the stitches from the previous round, including the joining stitch, slip stitch in first stitch.

Round 3: Sc into the same stitch. *skip one stitch, shell stitch (5 dc) into the next, skip 1, sc into the next stitch*. Repeat ** to the end, slip stitch into the first stitch.

Fasten off and weave in ends.

Hope you have a nice summer!

Gacha Vilje is soon off to Japan, maybe we will see V for Finurlig there?

Contest ends on September 30th, so you have plenty of time.