Quick little Coffee Cup amigurumi

 Working on my scrap yarn "use it up" challenge for May, and working on filler for my May 13 craft show, I wanted to make a few little coffee cup amigurumi. 

I have a pattern somewhere...I did a quick search and didn't find it, so I just winged it and made up a pattern. 

For the yellow and blue cups, I used worsted weight yarn and an F hook. 

The red cup is two strands of worsted weight held together. I started with an L hook, but after my turning row, it seemed like the stitches weren't tight enough to hide the stuffing, so I went down to a K hook. That's why the top seems a bit narrower than the base. 

So, here goes: 

Cup: 

Round 1: 6 sc in MR (6)

Round 2: inc x 6 (12)

Round 3: (sc, inc) x 6 (18)

Round 4: (2 sc, inc) x 6 (24)

Round 5: sc in BLO, or do BPSC. The BPSC is a little harder to do, but I think it makes a better turning edge. (24)

Rounds 6-10: sc (24) 

Round 11: sc in FLO (24) Finish off using invisible finish. 

I didn't do the invisible finish on this one... see the gap? 

I was trying to use up some scrap yarn and made one cup where I put a Round 12 of sc after the FLO row... and I like the way it turned out... The coffee is at a slightly lower level. 

Handle: in cup color

Leaving a starting tail long enough to sew end of handle on (about 4"), chain 10. 

Starting in second ch from hook, sc x 9. Ch 1 and rotate your work. Make a sl st in the bottom of each chain. FO, leaving a tail for sewing. 

You are working both sides of the chain, so you end up with an end for sewing at each end of the handle. You can play around with how you sew the handle on... putting the ends closer together makes more of a rounded handle. Putting them further apart makes for a flatter handle. 

I played yarn chicken with this cup, and only had about 10" of yarn left for the handle. I pulled the yarn through and drew up a loop, then made chains until I only had 2" of yarn left. I used that to sew that end of the handle down. 

Coffee: 

With a shade of brown... 

Round 1: 12 sc in MR

Round 2: hdc inc x 12 (24)

FO, leaving a tail for sewing. 

Assembly: 

Embroider a face on your cup. 

I put my safety eyes between rounds 7 & 8, with 3 stitches between. You can play around with different size eyes, different facial expressions, eyebrows, etc. 

I cut a small plastic disc from a cottage cheese container lid, and put it into the bottom of the coffee cup to help keep the bottom flat. Stuff cup lightly. 

Sew coffee layer to cup, using the back loop of Round 11 on the cup. When you only have a few stitches to go, see if you need to put in a little more stuffing. 

Sew handle to side of cup. 

All done! These work up quickly and use scrap yarn, so I sell them for $5 for the small ones and $7 for the double stranded ones at my craft shows. 

They make a great project to go... if you don't want to lug around a bag of stuffing and your favorite yarn needle and safety eyes. You can make the cup, handle and coffee, and do the face and assembly when you're back home again! 

11/18 update... at a craft show earlier this month, someone said I should make a "flip coffee", where you flip it from happy to sad. I worked up two cups as above, put them together top to top, and crocheted them together... Yay! Flip coffee! 

I want to see if sewing them together makes a better top... One thing I found out is that worsted weight yarn can vary in wraps per inch... for this project, it's best to do a wrap count for your yarn and make sure the count matches. For the yarns above, the wpi count varied from 9 - 11, and putting a 9 WPI cup with an 11 WPI cup made it more difficult to flip. 

Also, the green/red cup in the center has an extra increase row in the base. I went up to 30 stitches instead of 24.