This is my first mushroom container made from this lovely pattern. Being a novice (this is the second crafting project I’ve ever completed), I made lots of adjustments to the pattern because:

• I found that with the yarn and the type of single-crocheted stitch I used, my shroom weren’t turning out like the pictures at all; and
• I didn’t want to fill in the base with stuffing so I left it empty by modifying the base patterns.

Below are my notes on how I did it, the pattern will not be published here, so just go to the above link for the bulk of it. Below is just my tips and thoughts on how to have a shroom turn out as closely resembling the actual pattern picture as possible. If you have no idea how to crochet, this is not the place to learn. Nonetheless the pattern is not difficult, all you need to know is how to crochet rings, chain stitches, single crochet stitches, decreasing single crochet stitches (yay videos :D), how to read patterns and how to sew buttons.

Materials I used

• Size I/9 (5.5mm) hook - I wanted to make a shroom as large as possible to fit more. With the yarn I used, the shroom ended up being about 14cm (5.5 inches) at its widest and about 17cm (6.8 inches) tall
• Since the given pattern has no indication of what yarn to used, I looked for yarn that had labelled for 5.5mm size needles.I bought a 100g ball of Lincraft’s “Veronica” (100% acrylic) yarn in white and one in red. Don’t worry too much about the names, these were the only yarn in my craft store I could find that were of the right size. If you get more tough yarn you’ll end up with a more sturdier shroom.
• Buttons (one to secure the lid close, the others for decoration)
• Safety pin for stitch marking
• A smaller crochet hook for weaving in the ends (I used a 3.5mm hook I think)
• Needles and a bit of red thread for securing the buttons

How I did the Cap

I started with the cap of the shroom and as I was towards finishing it, I was devastated to see that even though I followed the pattern correctly, possibly given the way I single crochet, it looked very little like picture. Because the pattern didn’t specify otherwise, I did my single crochet stitches the standard way (e.g. like this), that is, hook going under both “V”-shaped parts of the chain. I’m aware that there are other ways to do single crochet stitches but the pattern didn’t indicate it should be done any other way. What resulted was a much “smoother” yarned surface (certainly not as bumpy as shown in the orange shroom on the pattern page) with a very flat lid that didn’t look very nice at all.

After finishing the top anyway, I was disheartened to see it looked quite different from how it’s supposed to look, much flatter and “donut”-like. Out of curiousity I turned the top inside out and VIOLA! it looked much more like the pattern! It brought on the bumpiness that gave the cap its texture and raised the lid to not look so flat. By turning it inside out, the cap looked much like that of the pattern.

How I did the trunk

I had no intentions of putting stuffing into the base and sealing it up but wanted to leave the trunk open and joinable up to the cap of the shroom. Therefore, the way I did the trunk was:
Rounds 1-10: I followed the “trunk” pattern as it’s written
Round 11: SC in the next 6 SC, SC2TOG, SC in the next 12 SC, SC2TOG, SC in the next 6 SC (26 SC)
Round 12: SC in each SC around (26 SC)
Round 13: (SC2TOG, SC in the next 11 SC) around (24 SC)
Round 14: SC in each SC around (24 SC)
Finish off, weave ends. Turn it inside out (if you’re doing single crochets as I have, discussed above).

You should have the same number of stitches at the top of the “trunk” as the bottom of the shroom cap (i.e. 24 stitches).

Joining it together

The pattern given didn’t specify how to join the cap and trunk. This is a neat guide to joining the pieces so feel free to follow those instructions. However, I forgot to leave the tail of the cap (I had fastened off and weaved the tail away). So what I did instead was from the INSIDE of the shroom, I joined the cap and trunk with single-crochet stitches. I don’t think it matters which colour yarn you used, I used white because I have more of it.

With the outside of the trunk and cap facing towards you, hold the top of the trunk and bottom of the cap seams together (you might need to open up the lid of the mushroom to more easily get access with your hook). With the lines of “v”s from the top of the stitches of the top and bottom held together, hook a strand, put you hook in under the two “v”s, yarn over, and pull that through both loops so you have your first single-crochet. Repeat with the next 24 single-crochet of the corresponding cap and trunk until you’ve joined it.

It’s really fiddly work especially towards the end when you’re wrestling to get your hook inside your mushroom to finish joining. I imagine it might be even more fiddly with a smaller shroom. Nonetheless, doing it this ways seemed to have joined it really well. Because I used single crochet, you can see the inside of the shroom (third image) has an almost ledging to it. You’re welcome to use slip-stitches instead of single-crochet stitches to join; I image it’ll give a little more room inside.

And that’s about it! Other variations of instead of sewing buttons can be attaching felt pieces to decorate, maybe embroidery or even crocheting something on it. Or nothing at all if you want to go for a simple shroom. Remember, the trunk is also open for decorating too!

Variations

Here is one I did entirely in back loops. Turns out it didn’t do much for raising the top (prior to flipping inside out) but once you have, the top is actually pretty tall. All the chance that was present was a neat textured pattern to the surface.