kitchen string crochet bowl and placemat

When I completed my last crochet project - the huge grey blue yellow and green blanket for my older son - I wanted my next one to be something quick to finish. Not sure where I got the idea, but I decided to have a go at crocheting something round and about the same time I spotted some kitchen twine, it looked like a plain unbleached cotton to me, whilst trawling the local supermarket. After a quick search I went with the Attic24 tutorial for crocheting a flat circle and quickly knocked up a cute placemat type thing with the cotton,  doing the final two rounds in the leftover grey cotton (Jo Sharp - Fog) from the big blanket. Actually I had to alter the design a little as after 10 or so rounds it wouldn't sit flat anymore, so mine had 10 'segments' rather than 11. This may be due to a difference in yarn weight? The cotton string is a bit thinner than the usual 8-ply cotton I use, but denser, and I used a 3.5mm crochet hook. And as you can see the resulting shape isn't awfully round, more a decagon!

I wanted to see if I could finish the last round before the yarn ran out. Nope.

Part way through, loving this make things quickly approach, I decided a little bowl using the same materials and technique would soon follow. I figured if you just stop increasing after you'd made the size circle you wanted, you'd get a bowl. So off I went...

And really that's all there was to it! When it was first completed the bowl was much rounder at the bottom, the bottom edge wasn't a sharp corner, but over time it has settled and now has a much squarer profile. I think this heavy little collection of shells that mr.5 picked up one day helped!