Well, we’ve had a lovely run of sunny weather…until today. This morning was grey and wet, with solid rain falling vertically for quite some time. I love it. Good for the garden! Now it’s dry, but windy. Weird!

So yeah, I’m definitely a bag lady this week. Four new bags made.

Ali of Little Drops of Wonderful, in partnership with Claudia of Crochet Luna, is running a Dodgy Bag Make-along #dodgybagmal2020 which is inspiring me to make even more bags! Here’s another of the project bags from Erica Arndt’s tutorial – I’ve made a lot of these now – and I used some of my dwindling peace sign fabric in conjunction with some solid cottons and denim. I used my new machine to embroider “handmade” on the front and I added a couple of pockets inside.

This small crocheted bag was an “I need something to crochet while I walk” project. Yesterday I decided it was going to be a long walk, so I grabbed a bag and some yarn and a hook and set out. It’s two partial cakes of Caron Cupcakes, different colourways, held together and single crocheted with a 5.5mm hook. I made most of it while walking for well over an hour. When I got home, I decided to line it. Well, the first attempt to make a lining failed because I made it too narrow so that became a separate little bag.

Then I cut some solid purple and used that to line the crocheted bag, extending the lining above the level of the crochet to make a drawstring casing.

Seeing my work in progress sitting on top of its denim project bag got me all excited about combining crochet and denim in one project. So today, after breakfast and noodling around on the computer, I went down to my sewing room and rummaged in my denim offcuts. I have lots of old jeans, most of which have now been cut up for bags, but I found a good-sized chunk which I cut and trimmed to make an asymmetrical project bag.

It’s basically the back pocket and top part of the leg, and one belt loop was attached at the top. I removed three more belt loops from what was left of the waistband and sewed them to the top of my new bag. Before sewing the side seams, I attached the crocheted mandala to the non-pocket side, anchoring the centre with a button. I discovered a new stitch on my sewing machine which looks like overlocking, so I used that for the side seams, and then I added part of the jeans seam as a drawstring, plus a large button.

To give you an idea of size, the bag is 13″ tall when lying flat, and the crochet mandala is 7.5″ across.

There has been some yarny progress on my only WIP, however I seem to have a repetitive strain injury at the base of my left thumb which makes knitting a little uncomfortable. However, here it is in all its scrappy glory.

Last time I measured it, it was about 18″ deep, and I’m probably aiming for 60″. Also, I think the measurement across (when the tube is laid flat, double thickness) is about 48″, though it’s hard to tell for sure. It’s 370 stitches around (and around, and around) but it’s great Netflix knitting. I had to do some minor repairs on the bottom edge the other day, as the vacuum cleaner sucked in a couple of tails and I realised afterwards that one row had been pulled really tight for a few inches either side and there was a live loop randomly hanging out. Oops!

We had an enjoyable dinner of homemade sushi, coconut rice and baked spicy tofu and once that has had a chance to digest Mr Fixit and I are going to do some yoga. Happy crafting!