Mug Huggers

It's dismal and foggy here today so I had tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches when I got home for something cozy and warm. You know what else makes me feel cozy and warm? Hot coffee, especially a cup I didn't have to make for myself. Unfortunately not everywhere uses styrofoam cups and the little cardboard things to go around the paper cups aren't always enough to keep my hands from burning. So I like to use mug huggers, or cozies, whatever you like to call them. They're also nice during the summer to keep your hands from freezing with ice cold drinks! There's so many different ways to make these, but this is my personal favorite because it's so easy to dress up by adding a little flower or bow etc. to hide the seam. First things first we'll need to start with a slip stitch. Next we'll chain either the length or width of the mug hugger. You can do either the only difference it makes is in the way the "stripes" go. If you chain the width they will be vertical, the length will be horizontal. I chose to chain the width, so I chained 15. Keep in mind that however wide you want it you'll need to chain 1 extra to act as the beginning of your first row. I accidentally deleted my picture of my chain, so if you need a refresher on what a chain is, yarn over and pull through the loop on your hook, repeat as often as necessary. The stitch I'm working with in this project is called a Half Double Crochet (hdc). Here's how you do it. Yarn over, push your hook through the chain right next to the loop on your hook, yarn over and pull through, yarn over one more time and pull through all 3 loops on your hook. And there you have it, a hdc :) I love this stitch because it's just as quick and easy as the single stitch, but it gets the project done just a tad quicker and you don't have all the holes that come with a double crochet. Keep doing hdc's until you reach the end of your row. Don't forget that you should have 1 less hdc than you did chain. I chained 15, but because the last chain counted into my first row I'll only have 14 stitches in all the rows now. When you get to the end of your row chain 1, turn over and continue doing hdc's. Here's where preference kicks in. You'll now have two loops you can crochet through, but some people choose to only crochet through the first one. I prefer going through both, going through just one creates a pronounced ridge I'm not overly fond of in most projects, going through both hides it a little more. I'll show you pictures of going through 2 and 1 loop, and what it looks like with and without the ridge. In the above picture, if you look at the top/right half of the crocheted piece there's a little ridge that disappears halfway down. The ridge is going through 1 loop, and where it disappears is going through 2 loops. Finish your piece to the length you want it (keep the mug/cup you plan on using it on handy so you can test to see when it's long enough.) Also, make sure to count your stitches at the end of the row to make sure you haven't accidentally added or lost any. When your's is long enough fold it in half. (Mine was about 10 inches) Now we're going to slip stitch both ends together. Make sure you get into each stitch on both sides. The first one was the hardest for me, I had to wriggle my hook in but I got it. When you're done there will be a ridge but you'll just flip that to the inside and it won't be noticeable. When you've slip stitched the last stitch chain one, make the loop big and tighten the knot, cut the loop in the middle and pull out the extra, and tie the two tails together. I usually tie it twice just to be safe. You can either cut off the ends or weave them in. Flip it inside out and you're done! I'll post a tutorial on little embellishments you can add to it later! Here's the last of the pictures :) Enjoy!!