Sweet and Special Soapies

Today a little lesson about how to make a "soapie" - my own invented word.

To me, a soapie is a little cotton crochet holder for a small bar of soap.  It can be used in the shower as a soapy scrubber or alternatively as a drawer sachet.  The holder is made from 100% cotton yarn so even if it's used in the shower, it should hold up decently well and can probably be popped in the wash if need be.

This soapie is made so that the soap can be replaced either when it's been all used up in the shower or it's lost its scent in the drawer.  Don't toss the soap that's lost its scent as the unscented soap may no longer work in the sachet, but can still get you clean in the shower.

I made the holders to fit a box of small square soaps that I purchased at Trader Joe's before the holidays.  The soaps came in three neutral colors and were all scented Lemon Verbena.  The small giveaway soaps that you find in hotel rooms or B&Bs would also fit in these little holders, maybe not EXACTLY but certainly a good enough fit.

Three out of the four holders have buttons.  I left one without a button in case its owner opted do use it in the shower and didn't like the idea of having a button on their body scrubber.

Here's how I made them: (I used Knit Picks Dishie yarn and a size H (5mm) hook)

Step 1: Find a pattern for a small crochet square.  I chose THIS PATTERN.  You may want to have a wander through my pinterest board "Crochet Granny and Squares."  I selected a pattern that would result in the approximate size square to fit my soaps.  The pattern I selected had three rounds and in all cases, I did the first two rounds of my square in the same color and then changed to another color to complete the third round and do the joining.

Step 2: Make TWO squares from your pattern.  They can of course be identical or a mix-matched colors but they should be the exact same size.

Step 3: Hold the two wrong sides together.  Then starting on the upper left side of your sandwiched squares, single crochet around 3 sides.  Go through both loops of crochet and through both squares (that's going through a total of 4 loops) Do not cut the yarn.  It doesn't matter which corner you start in to join the squares, as long as you go in the direction of the arrows and don't finish off your yarn when you've joined the third side.

When I joined, I made two sc in the first corner where I started.  Then, I made one sc in each side stitch of the final round of my square.  When I got to the bottom corners, I made 3sc in each corner.  You may need to modify how many stitches you use in your joining based on the pattern you choose for your square.

Step 4: With the remaining 4th side open, sc across the top of the front square only.

In the photo above you can see that the soap is inserted into the open 4th side of the squares - the one that's not joined.  The arrows indicate where I single crocheted just across that top open edge of the front square.

Step 5: Continue single crocheting around the corner and then across the top open edge of the back square.  If you don't want to add a button loop, just continue around to the corner of the front square.  Finish off and weave in all ends of your joining yarn.  If you didn't weave in the ends of your squares at an earlier time, you can flip your entire soapie inside out and complete that task.

Step 6:  Optional.  If you intend to add one or two button loops to your soapie, you'll want to complete step 5 just a tad differently.

You can see the buttons that hold closed the top of the soapie in the photo above.

To create a button loop (or loops) see the diagram below.

My diagram is not accurate in terms of the number of stitches I show and in the fact that my front square has a bunch more stitches than the back square - the two squares will have the same number of stitches.  I just wanted to show how to skip a stitch and instead make 3 chain stitches to form a button loop.  Obviously if you need to make more than one button loop, you will need to space out where to make them along your square and then skip a stitch for each loop and add 3 chains above the skipped stitch.  Hopefully that is not too confusing.  I didn't photograph my process while I made the little soapie so I had to resort to the diagram instead.

I'm sure you could also insert a round soap into this little pouch.  Or, you could make a larger rectangle shape and join two of those together to cover a full sized bar of soap.

Last Christmas I made a bunch of little draw string soap holders for a standard sized bar of soap - you can see my post about those by clicking here.

Enjoy - Sher!

PS.  Next up - the Rainbow Trellis blanket (a photo tutorial of a blanket pattern I created - free of course as all the fly the coop crafts blog patterns are!)