Fortune Cookie Pattern Review

LoveHearts Pattern (c) June GIlbank

With Valentine's Day looming, I made a decision to make something small and different for the man, the kids, and my coworkers. I saw a cute pattern for crochet fortune cookies on Ravelry and made the decision THAT is what I was going to make.

For the Man and my kids, the fortune cookie was just a small piece to their Valentine's Day - for my coworkers, I left them a crocheted fortune cookie and a piece of chocolate.



The pattern I'm reviewing is lcoated on Ravelry and is also on Yarnovations, where the Ravelry link takes you. The pattern includes instructions for the fortune cookies and a jar wrap. This review is ONLY for the fortune cookies. I did not make the jar wrap.

First and foremost, you don't need to know much more than how how chain, slip stitch, and single crochet for this pattern, making it a good pattern for new crocheters. You do crochet in the round without joining (crochet in a spiral) so a beginner would have to decide if they were comfortable with this or not before taking on making a fortune cookie.

The pattern is very simple, consisting of a total of 6 rows. I think for the more expert crocheter, it is a pain to try and forget that when you increase on this pattern, you increase but still only do 18 stitches rather than the full increase round. You see this on rows 4, 5 and 6 -  you want to add more stitches to do full repeats, but you have to remember to stop at 18 stitches, regardless of it being a full round or not.

The pattern suggests you fold the cookie in half and stitch around it and THEN you put the fortune in. I found it much easier to slide the fortune in and stitch the circle into a half circle with the fortune already in place. If you try to stuff the fortune in after you make it a half circle, the fortune gets wrinkled up a bit - I wanted mine to look a bit more pristine, ya know - as if they came straight from the fortune cooking making factory.

There is no real instruction on how to stitch up the cookie into a half circle OR how to stitch it into the shape of a fortune cookie. I think the pattern author was assuming people knew how to make the shape. I ended up whip-stitching the cookie closed in about the top 1/3 of the half circle shape - I left a decent hole on either side and, as I said earlier, I did the whip-stitching around the paper rather than putting the paper in afterwards. I then, instead of finishing off, passed my super long tail used to do the whip stitch down to the middle where I bent the cookie, shaped the edges using my fingertips and stitched the 2 sides together to the cookie shape (with the ends pinched onto my thumb and index finger).

I can at least say I know why the pattern writer didn't explain it in the pattern. I just tried to in the above paragraph and realize that I just spoke a foreign language even to myself! Maybe they left that part out because it really is too complex to tell people how to do it - but perhaps a picture would have helped. I don't know.

I think the most complicated part of this pattern was coming up with quotes to go into my cookies. The pattern page from Yarnovations includes several fortunes but I wanted cookies with quotes about friendship. It took me some time but in the end I had them printed and in the cookies.

On Valentine's morning, my coworkers were very impressed at the little cookies. Some people didn't even pull the fortune out because the way I did it, it was VERY difficult to get the fortune back into the cookie. One of my friends at work is on a mission to find out what every cookie's fortune is - especially when she found out I didn't duplicate any of them.

In the end, I'd say I give this pattern 4 balls of yarn because it was easy and the ending result was very much appreciated. I would have given it more if there would have been more instruction on finishing up the cookies, especially the part where you stitch it to look like the cookie shape.