Crochet Bear Rug Coaster (and killing yarn)

I saw some bear rug coasters on the Internet and couldn't resist trying to make a crochet version.

I made up the pattern as I want along, just making a circle for the body adding some arms, legs and a tail then sewing the head on. For the head I used the same head as for the Crochet Bear that I made last year.

The only issue I had with these was that the arms and legs did not lie flat which really annoyed me. A search the interweb showed me how to make yarn projects lie flat through a process called Killing. Killing sounds very dramatic but it's quite easy to do however done wrong and you will literally "kill" your project. I was a bit skeptical of the method but gave it a try anyway. Really, I should have tried the method on a swatch of crochet first but I was running out of time. Another worry was that the coasters would curl up again after time or after being folded for a period of time.

I pinned the arms and legs down so that they were lying flat and then used the iron on the lowest steam setting about 1/2 an inch above the yarn. It only took a few seconds for each appendage and I was incredibly careful not to touch the yarn with the iron.

Firstly the steam method worked and the coasters became flat without too much affort. Secondly as I was giving these away as a gift I had to gift wrap them, not being able to gift wrap them perfectly flat I was afraid the arms and legs would curl up again. They did not! When the gift wrapping came off (after being wrapped for a good few days) the coasters lay perfectly flat. I was extremely surprised and happy about this. At least for the future I know that I can flatten my crochet, if needs be, using this method and it will stay flat. If I am using a different type of yarn and have the time I will definitely make a crochet swatch first just to make sure that the killing method won't ruin my project.

In hindsight I should have taken before and after pictures but I was too determined to uncurl the coasters that I forgot...