The first yarn store that I went to was Knit New York, way back when it was still open over on Avenue A. It was a fancy yarn store, with beautiful hand-dyed skeins, and not a sliver of acrylic in sight. It was beautiful, and it had amazing yarn, but it also was a bit snobby. Anyhoo, they're gone now.
Save-a-Thon is a crafter's wet dream. I got my skein for $3.49, NO TAX, and it was beautiful and soft. They have huge pound balls for less than $9.00, and some other awesome deals. I needed something that I could practice stitches on, and it felt right.
When I got home, and saw that it crocheted up nicely with the only hook I have, I knew it was either going to be a slouchy (kinky hair friendly) beanie, or a bag.
It became this bag:
Doesn't it look just nice?? Yeah, it has faults, and technically it's something I made up as I went along, but it came out really beautiful. It's a mish-mosh of patterns from BobWilson123, with a hat base bottom, treble crochet all the way through the body of the bag (save a row of double or half-double crochets my first non-increasing round). I did some shaping around the top. I'll write a pattern at the bottom of this post. I call it a yarn bag, because it looks best with yarn inside it, although I'd bring it to the store in a pinch, despite the color scheme.
I know I could have done a regular chain for the pull cord, or some soft of crochet foundation row thing, but I instead pulled out my trust Double-Point (DPNs) knitting needles and made it. I ended up making the cord waaaaaay too long (I can put the bag around me and it hits my hip). I kind of like the quasi-unfinished cord (although the strings are both tied together, and the cords are tied, so there's no coming loose)
I feel like having the bag hanging up doesn't do justice to the its capacity. I have four t shirts (XL or bigger) in here, and there's still room. The base of the bag is 8in (20cm) across, and it's 15in (38cm) long. I could probably put two of those 16oz balls, and have room for my roll of needles no sweat. A quick note: I got the blue back around the edge by finishing with the white, and then coming back through with the yarn that was left (a few yards), and bringing it back to blue. It didn't look right with a pure white top when the I-cord was white to blue.
I thought some people might want to see how it looks kind of stretched (those are pairs of socks, not balls of yarn in it ^^;). Those are treble stitches, which I thought looked nicer with the yarn and hook that doubles.
A Very Basic Pattern for The Yarn Bag:
Using a basic beanie starter pattern, make the base as wide as you would like it to be. You don't have to use triple crochet's; use whatever looks nice with your yarn and hook choices. I would suggest going through both the loops, and the string underneath. It looks stronger. I realized in the middle of that pink, and I thought fuck it, I'm not going back or changing, but I did do it for the shaping around the top.
What You Need:
- Yarn of your choice
- A hook size befitting your yarn
- Large-eyed needle (optional)
- Two Double Pointed (DPN) knitting needles (optional if you want an I-cord like mine)
Once you get the base the circumference you're happy with, your first round not increasing should be a shorter stitch (if you're using trebles, do a round of doubles, if doubles, do half-doubles etc.). THen go back to whatever stitch you want for your mesh and have a gay old time making it as long as you'd like.
Once you get to the length you're happy with, it's time to shape the top. Do a round of the stitch size under (or a few, your choice), and at equal intervals of shortening the stitch, decrease. I didn't decrease all that equally -_-.
After you've shaped it up, make a row of your original long body stitch so you can weave your I-cord through. I weaved mine around twice because I liked the look and how it closed.
Now go down to a single crochet, and do a few more rounds to finish it up. You can see that I did a row.
Darn in the ends, and now you're done! Aren't you excited to put stuff in your new bag, and it probably looks just as awesome.
If you make it, let me know!
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