Shiny Happy Cotton Bag

This bag. Oh dear...

I'm not sure if you can say this about your own designs, but I  l o v e  it. And the combination of mint and hot pink doesn't hurt either. ;-)

Let me first elaborate a bit about this yarn... A while back I was gifted  g o r g e o u s  Shiny Happy Cotton by Wool and the Gang. I've been wanting to try this yarn for ages and oh man, I did NOT disappoint.

Firstly: I simply adore these colours. And the other colours for this range look every bit as yummy. Secondly, the yarn worked up like a dream, it really did, very soft yet very strong (ideal for this bag!). Really loved it. I will definitely be using it more often as there are not many 100% cotton yarns out there suitable for 5 mm hook or up, don't you think? Have you worked with this particular yarn before?

Back to the bag! In case you like it: I'm working on a pattern for it (and pondering about a name for it). So stay tuned. :-)

I'd looove to hear what's currently on your hook! 

Thanks for your lovely visit - much appreciated. Have a good day.

xHaafner

You can find the UK edition of my book below:

Pattern Breezy Summer Bag

As promised: The pattern for the Breezy Summer Bag! I made mine with JungleVine - read more here and here. Of course it would work with other yarn too.

Remarks beforehand
 ♦ I don't give one size for the bag. You can make it as big as you like by adding chains to the begin chain or by using a more voluminous fibre.
 ♦ The chart is therefore only schematic, it doesn't give a specific number of stitches - just the general pattern.

 ♦ I used JungleVine and a 2.7 mm crochet hook.

 ♦ In principle you don't have to cut your yarn, it's a 'in-one-go-pattern' as it were. This to make you bag as strong as possible. (Of course it depends on the yarn you use if you need to use more balls.)
♦ American crochet terminology.

Pattern

Bottom of the bag
♦ To start
make a chain (the lenght of this chain will be the length of your bag).

♦ Round 1
sc in third chain of your hook, continue dc'ing in every ch st.

♦ Round 2:

turn work, ch 1 and sc in each sc of previous round.

♦ Round 3 to round [x]:
- repeat round 2 until you have the bottom of your bag has the desired size.

- don't cut yarn

- single crochet along the four sides of the bottom, with 2 sc in each corner.

- don't cut yarn

Sides of the bag
 ♦ Round 1
- ch 2 as a first dc, dc in the backloops of every sc of the four sides of the bottom (backloops only because this creates a ridge. The following rounds you crochet through both loops as per usual)
- sl st in 2nd ch of the 2 chains that form the first dc

 ♦ Round 2
- don't turn turn work
- ch 1, 1 sc in every dc of the previous round
- sl st in 1st sc of this round

♦ Round 3
- ch 2 as a first dc, dc in every sc of the previous round
- sl st in 2nd ch of the 2 chains that form the first dc

♦ Round 4 to round [x]
continue alternating round 3 and 4 until your bag has the desired size.

Handle
- single crochet on one side of the bag till your handle as the desired width.

- continue in the same fashion of the rest of the bag, alternating sc and dc for every (short) row, 

- until your handle has the desired lenght, crochet the last round also through the other side of the bag to attach the handle on that side.

Decorative edge and button hole
- single crochet along the last round of your bag (with another colour)

- sl st in first sc, 

- don't turn work, 

- do a 2nd round of sc, but make chain the middle (instead of sc's) to make a button hole, like you see on the pic below:

And here is the chart, I hope it's clear, it was a bit difficult to draw... (Please keep in mind that it's schematic and I don't give a specific number of stitches because that really depends on the size bag you'd like to make and it doesn't matter for the basic pattern.)

Okay, that's it my crafty friends... If you are making this bag I'd love to see it.
Thanks for your visit and have a lovely day!
♦♦♦

My New Crochet Bag and a Giveaway Winner

Yarn, twine, rope, thread or even plarn: they're all suitable for crochet. Although the results will be quite different. :-)

Personally I love experimenting with different kinds of fibre. So I was excited when I got the chance to crochet with the fibre of the kudzu plant, also know as JungleVine.  

This is the skein I received.

Beautiful, isn't it?
Let's do a closeup. ;-)

Beautiful as it may be, it's an understatement to say I was not looking forward to handwinding this into a ball. I'm notoriously bad at this and I always end up tangling the yarn beyond rescue with me somewhere stuck inbetween - desperately crying out for help. However, this time I was in for a pleasant surprise. the skein was divided in mini-skeins, like this:

There's even a a little loop (which you can see in the picture) between every mini to prevent any untimely unravelling. I have never seen this before and I think it is such a clever way of creating a skein. 

I'm really curious: is this a common way for making a skein? Seriously, I'd love to know! Because it was really, really, a piece of cake to handwind it into a ball. No tangling. So, I was happy and I ended up with this huge, squishy ball.

Then came the really fun part: crocheting. I decided to make a bag, similar to the Nature Bags. Also, I decided that I wanted to make it without having to cut the yarn. So that the bag would be as strong as possible. And I wanted it to be simple. So this is what I came up with - Meet the Breezy Bag:

I made a small, cream edging with cotton crochet yarn. 

Some facts... I used a 2.7 mm crochet hook. But I think you could use up to at least a 3.5 mm hook for this fibre. It's a bit 'harder work' than crocheting with a regular yarn (probably also because I used a relatively small hook) but definitely very doable. Plus I found it fun and interesting because it's just completely different than all other yarns I've worked with: although it's very sturdy, the surface is at the same time much smoother than, for instance, twine. And the result is very stretchable. So I would use it again. Which is good news, because I still have some left! Ha!

I will post the pattern for the Breezy Bag here next week.

A Winner!
And now... Thank you all so very much for participating in the Nature Bag Giveaway. But there can only be one winner and that is... Kotbury from the lovely Kotbury blog! Congratulations to you and please mail me your address and I'll send you the bag asap.

If you did not win but would still like to be a proud owner of such a cute fairtrade bag you can find them online here. If you'd like to work with the JungleVine yarn yourself: Nature Bag sells JungleVine skeins, although they're not listed in their webshop yet. If you are interested you can send an email to service@naturebag.org.

Thanks so much for your lovely visit. I wish you all a most happy day!
♦♦♦

Nature Bag and a Giveaway

Hello dear readers,

Ohoh, it's been too long... But it's good to be back, both at home and on my blog.
I had a lovely time in Thailand and today I would like to take you with me to an interesting project in a neighbouring country: Laos.

Maybe you remember the first photo, I posted it before on this blog last September...

It's a bag from Nature Bag - I bought it a couple of years ago when I was in Laos. I sometimes use it as yarn bag when I'm abroad, because it's flexible and lightweight. It's from made of the natural, strong kudzu fibre which is traditionally used in Laos (and other countries) for making bags and baskets. Kudzu (also known as Japanese arrowroot, as Wikipedia kindly informed me) is a climbing vine that is native to Laos and many other parts of Asia.

On the occasion of posting that photo last year I was contacted by the kind Terry from Nature Bag. Nature Bag is a fairtrade project based in Laos. They make these traditional tote bags with a modern twist from the JungleVine as they dubbed the amazing fibre that is destined to be turned in a Nature Bag. We agreed that I would style and photograph more Nature Bags. The results of which you see here! I loved doing this because fairtrade has my heart.

I tried to highlight the fact that they are very lightweight by pinning them to my wall. I only needed a two or three pins. (Good news for my wall.)

Despite their lightweight nature and delicate looks, the bags are very strong, capable of expanding to carry heavy cargo. (I loaded mine with books!) The bags are knotted, not woven or crocheted, so in the unlikely event that a hole develops, the bag should not unravel. I wish I could say the same about my crochet. ;-)

Nature Bag gifted a bag for a giveaway for my lovely readers! If you would like a chance to win the blue-striped bag below, follow this blog and leave a comment. You can enter until April 2th 2015. [Edit: now closed]

If you'd like to see all styles of bags and meet the people who craft these lovely bags click here to go the Nature Bag website. (They have a webshop.)

In my next post I'll show you a bag I crocheted with JungleVine. I'll also share my pattern!
Okay, that's it for now. I hope you'll enter the giveaway. [Edit: now closed] If you do: Good luck!

Many thanks for your visit and I wish you a most lovely week.
♦♦♦

A New Shopper

Thank you for your kind comments on my recent posts and my sincere apologies for not answering them personally yet. I really appreciate them a lot though!



I would love to have made a travel blanket like last year's, because it is such a nice souvenir. It brings back memories of all the places where I've worked on it. Unfortunately this year there will be no travel blanket. However I did make a small project. If you follow me on Instagram you've seen the work in progress on this one.

The result: a shopper!

I've always wanted to try this spider pattern since I came across it on the internet. Unfortunately it is one of those - as I call them - orphaned patterns, without source. I tried to trace it back to its origins, but alas. If you know where it is first published, or who the designer is, please let me know so I can give credits and link to the original pattern, if possible. Thanks!

I really like this pattern, because there is a bit more to it than shows at first sight: the rows are not very tidy, if you know what I mean - I like that. ;-) 

When I was about to crochet the handles I was a just a tad grumpy because those would sort of ruin the pattern when using the bag (because it crumples). Then I realised I was being stupid because bamboo handles are widely available here. So off to the market I went and I found the perfect size hangers. Pattern saved!

I'm sorry for the somewhat crappy photos. Some people had a good laugh when they saw me trying to capture me-with-my-new-bag with the self-timer. My camera on a pile of yarn cakes to get the right height. Aaargh. Well, this is the best I could do. (What on earth is that arm doing there in the air? Seriously.) A tuk tuk driver thought I had gone mad when I hung my bag on that wall (the nail was there already!) in the middle of a crowded street because that beautiful wall just seemed the perfect backdrop. (Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me then, it was still chilling on top of those yarn cakes. So just a telephone snapshot there.)

Okay... A lot of words for a small project... Sorry about that...
Many thanks for your lovely visit!
I wish you a most lovely day.
♦♦♦

Another Market Bag

Maybe you remember the market bag I made last year? Well, recently I started to make a second one. Same pattern, but this time I'm using a thicker yarn and a 6 mm hook. (I probably used a 3 or 3,5 mm hook for the first one.)

I'm using this Portuguese cotton yarn: Trama Rustica. I bought it a couple of weeks ago in Lisbon, where I was for a few days to attend a meeting. Lucky me. ;-) I think it's ideal for this project, it's quite bulky and the structure is a bit rough (but not too much). It's also available in a thinner version, I bought a couple of those skeins last year.) *Boring picture alert, I made this photo in my hotel room and didn't have a decent background.*

I guessed one skein would be more than enough for one bag, but alas, as per usual when it comes to calculating (or rather: guessing) the amount of yarn I need, I misguessed. Luckily I will be going back to Lisbon within a couple weeks so hopefully I can get my hands on a second skein.

In case you're curious: this is the bag I made last year. (Market bag turned into yarn bag...)



♦♦♦Thanks for your kind visit! Have a lovely day.♦♦♦

Crochet Everywhere

Today I thought I'd share with you a few of the crochet works I came across. Below you see the crochet converted van of a yarn shop, something of a small chain here. They use it as their market stand.

I think it is safe to say that crafty Thailand is very crochet orientated, more so than knitting. (Contrary to what the sign on the picture above suggests.) When you go to a market, you'll often see - female - vendors crocheting behind their stand. A lot of shops sells crochet items. Sometimes really nice, but other times I feel like abandoning this beautiful craft.

One shop I have to share with you is Bantaktor. It is from a crochet cooperative of which about 60 women are part of. They had some cute knitted items but it was mainly about crochet. The lady working in the shop was very friendly and informative. She told me most of the participants work without patterns. Also they only use cotton of a good quality. Find them online here.

I really like these bags that are partly plastic netting and partly cotton.

Another favourite of mine is this traditional woven basket (you find them a lot around here). Here however with a crochet jacket. Love the brown-blue combination.

In a corner of the shop there was this little workspace. See how the kitchen whisks are used? Nice!

In another (small) shop I found these boho bags. The mother of the shop owner made them.

Thanks for travelling a while with me!
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

And off to the market I went...

With my new bag  of course.

If you missed my previous post:
Here is the link to the (Japanese) pattern.
It's fairly easy.
The front and back are identical and
crocheted together with a seamless join.

This nice Hungarian blogger recently made the same bag.
She too chose to make longer straps.

Okay, last picture... The bag in actual use.
It stretches nicely!

Thanks so much for dropping by!
Have a nice day.
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

Market bag in the making

Still haven't finished writing down the pattern for my last throw,
sorry about that. It's in the making though.


















Also in the making is this fun market bag.
I found the pattern on Pinterest (click here).
It's a Japanese crochet pattern.
Meanwhile we're enjoying a couple of really hot days here in The Netherlands. Lovely!

Take care.
♦♦♦