Crocheted Produce Bag, Take 2

Second time's the charm, I suppose. After trawling Ravelry for another bag for apples, I stumbled upon this pattern, helpfully worked with a G hook. I had a lot of craft yarn from Michael's lying around and put it to good use.

After about an hour listening to Pandora, I was halfway done.

The bottom base is far wider than my palm which makes the entire bag rather unwieldy. Next time, I'll take out the last round before working the sides.

I liked the pattern of chain 8, double crochet, though I did ignore the instruction to slip stitch into the beginning chain three times. Slip stitches aren't stretchy and the few that I did gave the bag a lopsided appearance. The chain 80 drawstring fits nicely around the double crochets and pulls the bag closed.

There are six medium to large potatoes and a handful of smaller ones in there.

A fine market bag!

Crocheted Produce Bag, Take 1

Today I decided to crochet this produce bag. I don't like using plastic bags to hold apples or avocados and if I only have one or two pieces, I won't bother using a bag. 

I needed something that could hold a lot of onions or potatoes. Besides, I still have several skeins of yarn to mess around with and a lot of time on my hands. The entire project took about three hours and consisted mostly of chain stitches. The result... was much smaller than I was expecting.  

To be sure, I used my trusty G hook instead of the I hook the pattern called for and I messed up on one of the increasing rounds.

But this bag can only hold two apples and a peach! The top is also wide open so I wouldn't want to stuff it full of anything. I think I can get two or three medium potatoes in there but I won't try for more.

Looks like it's back to Ravelry for me.

Refashion: Pajama Leg into Pillow

This cut off pajama leg has been sitting in storage for a while. Instead of throwing it out, I wanted to put it to good use. I also had a mostly full bag of pillow fluff sitting around that I haven't touched in years. The solution was obvious: refashion the leg into a pillow!

The pants involved were a cheap but soft pair from Walmart, which meant that the seams didn't line up even after ironing.

I turned the leg inside out and stitched down the cut off end. One side is straight, the other isn't - I'm not sure what happened.

I turned it right side out and stuffed it with all the fluff. It's not quite even but I didn't care too much.

I finished by stitching the leg cuff closed. The pillow is useful if not pretty and I didn't have to throw out the scrap. A no-waste sewing project!

The Crochet Water Bottle Holder

I finally crocheted something useful: a holder for my water bottle. I came up with my own pattern, though since it's pretty simple, it might look like other patterns. 

Water Bottle Holder Pattern

Foundation Ring: Ch 4, sl st into first stitch 

Round 1: Ch3 (counts as first dc), 11 dc into the center

Round 2: Ch 3 (Counts as first dc), dc into space between Round 1 dc, ch 1, (2dc into ch1 sp, ch1) 11 times, sl st into first dc

Round 3:  Ch 3 (Counts as first dc), 2 dc into ch 1 sp, ch 1, (3dc into ch1 sp, ch1) 11 times, sl st into first dc 

Round 4: Ch3 (counts as first dc), dc into ch 1 sp, ch 2, (2 dc into ch 1 sp, ch2) 11 times, sl st into first dc

Rounds 5-10: Ch3 (counts as first dc), dc into top of dc, ch 2, (2 dc into top of dc, ch2) 11 times, sl st into first dc

Rounds 6-Finish: Ch4 (counts as first tc), tc into top of dc/tc, ch 2, (2 tc into top of dc/tc, ch2) 11 times, sl st into first tc

Strap: Ch 3, 2 dc into space between tc, dc into top of tc, turn and repeat until strap is long enough (it will stretch). Weave into tc on the other side, weave in ends.  

Note: I used worsted weight yarn and size G (4.25mm) hook. The sides could be done completely in dc or tc - I switched to tc to save yarn. 

Edging and Blocking the Hexagons

Almost done with the dishcloth. 

I wanted to make this piece more professional so I tried to fill in the gaps and add a border.

The original pattern didn't include a way to make half-hexagons to fill in the gaps on the side. A little Google Fu turned up Polka Dot Cottage, which also includes a way to make regular hexagons. This site, meanwhile, was exactly what I was looking for a month ago.

You might think that the half-hexagons don't fit the space and that's... accurate. Turns out the new hexagon pattern is much bigger than the one I used, so I had to wing it. Specifically, I skipped Rows 3 and 5 in the pattern and whip stitched the half-hexagons into place.

I then tried to do something for the corners and the inverted triangles, took a second look at the difference between my hexagons and the pattern's hexagons and decided to screw it.

That left the border.

I did a single crochet border using the below tutorial, which I think helps to... contain the piece. My dishcloth looks more polished and less like I gave up on it.



I can finally say I've blocked a piece. I never blocked my knitting pieces but after reading this, I decided it would be a good idea.

The dishcloth is lying flat now.

I also crocheted a new hexagon using the pattern found above. It's twice as large as my original hexagons.

Polka Dot Cottage also contained a tutorial for winding a skein of yarn into a center pull ball using just a pencil.

This project was a good idea. I improved my crocheting skills, learned how to edge and block a piece, controlled my skein of yarn and found a new project in the form of a hexagon blanket.

Putting it all together: Crochet Style

I now have eight crochet hexagons, none of which are useful on their own. Sewing them together into a dishcloth gives them purpose and me practice with the whip stitch.

 Yeah. Practice is a good word for this.

For some reason, the red hexagon is larger than its neighbors which throws off the edges. Not that the edges will line up anyway.

So that happened. I also don't know where the last of the white yarn went so I stitched the two pieces together with red yarn.

My dishcloth looks like the crochet version of Frankenstein's monster but it was good practice! It taught me what not to do next time.

Up next: Edging the piece with red trim.

The crochet hexagon pattern

I found a good hexagon pattern here - while each hexagon is about the size of my palm and I can't increase the size, I can sew them together.

Two things I learned from this pattern: a) I can crochet over the beginning tail with the 12 double crochets and avoid weaving in the end and b) understanding what the pattern requires is more important than following the pattern.

For instance, my first two tries were mistakes because I didn't understand what Round 3 actually required. Once I understood the repetition - 2 double crochets in one space, chain 3, 2 more double crochets in the same space, then 2 double crochets in the next space - I could ignore the written instructions. Round 3 starts on the 2 double crochets after the chain 3 and ends with 2 double crochets, chain 3 and slip stitch in the original space.

I also used up the dark blue, light blue and white yarns, leaving only the red to play with.