blockmelvin-bag-kindaguide

Funny with such a male-ish name on this “very close to being frompy” –bag. Well, it was my son’s choice of name (his own that is, and not very surprising as that’s what he names everything at the moment). It almost looks like a teapotcozy and I can’t decide whether I hate it or love it. I do love the squares but they might have looked better on a cushion, but I had my mind so set up for a new bag that I just couldn’t stop the bag-thing. Oh, and as you might know, I literally have bigger plans for this square, I want it to grow and grow… We’ll see how far I’ll get… (I’m more of a planner than a doer.)

I have been asked for the bag-pattern, but I won’t give you that. Or not exactly at least. I’ll give you sort of instructions or more kind of like a guide. (But I do suggest that you’ll make a pillow of the squares instead, or to choose different colors, colors that aren’t so “rosy”.)

Ok, you don’t have to choose the exact color (in fact I recommend you don’t), but IF you do, you’ll need this colors of Scheepjes Catona (on my top five list of all favorite yarns, my winner amongst cottonyarn):

2 balls of brown, #162 (50 gram/ball)
1 ball of green, #205 (50 gram/ball)
1-2 balls of white, 106 (I had two already started balls so I’m not sure of how much I used, but you can always use white, right, and the yarn is not so expensive) (50 gram/ball)
And then every (I think) pink and red color that is available in Catona, one 50 gram/ball of each color (not much is used so you don’t have to use as many different colors if you don’t want to, and I think 25 gram/ball would be enough per color if you still want to use every color, some of the colors are very similar also) 114, 408, 251, 192, 128, 222, 256, 238, 413, 398, 258, 390 115

You can find the free pattern of the square in my previous blog-post.

You need to make 56 of those squares, with about the same number in each of the red/pink colors. Row 3 in green, row 4 in whit, and row 5 in brown.

Weave in all ends of all the squares and lay them out how you want them to be. I think it took forever to assemble, so lay them on a place where they can stay for a couple of days without having someone to mess with them, unless you’re one of those lucky people with a lot crochettime in one sitting. (nope, not jealous, no no.)

Here’s a pic of how my bag is pieced together. You can of course make yours bigger or smaller. My bag measures 32,5 cm across and 33 cm from bottom to the top of the “toppest” square. (I've written halfsquares in the picture, but I mean the ones that look like halfsquares are actually folded regular squares.)

I googled this kind of bag to understand it, and you’re welcome to do so as well. This guide leaves a lot to ask for, I know.

I used brown yarn and the “slip stitch join method” There are great tutotorials for this so I totally recommend you to google this if you haven’t tried this method before. I think other joins would look lovely as well, so look around and decide for one that suits you. I did have a plan to use “single crochet join method” with white yarn that would sort of “square the squares in” as they would be used from the front, but seriously, I just couldn’t figure out where to begin, continue and end, my head just couldn’t cope with it! If yours can, I totally recommend it, it would look lovely!

Well, it took a lot of brainwork to figure out a smooth way to assemble the squares without losing track of where I was, and this is how I did:

I started with the “top three-squares” and assembled all four. Then I continued with the next row of squares (the red on the picture indicates where the assembling actually happened). Note that I don’t do a front and a back, I assemble all around at the same time, both front and back.

When you get to the bottom you should have gotten the hang of it and can figure out how to piece the squares together.

Weave in all ends, and now it’s time for the handles.

I started with a row of brown, sc in back loops. When I got to the top of the square I made chain 70 (more if you want larger handles) and joined in the top of the square on the same side and continued with sc in back loops until the next top of the squares where I made another handle the same way.

Fasten brown yarn again inside the handle and make sc (back loops) along the squares (red markings in the picture) and up the handle.

Then I made one row of sc in back loops on each side of the handle with white and then green yarn. In the corners I made 3 sc together.

I made lining in red fabric, just drawing the outlines of the bag directly on to the fabric. I zigzagged the edges before I sewed the back and front together of the lining, and also folded the top edges and sewed these edges in. I then handsewed the lining on to the bag. Well, I’m a sloppy sewer and I recommend to be more careful than I, as I even can’t show you a photo of it because of the sloppy result (good enough to use, but NOT good enough for closups.

Tadah! That’s it! Hope you enjoyed it and I really would love to see pics if anyone of you actually finish this bag! (Or cushion or anything with this square.)