Crochet Bag

So I love Lucy from Attic 24's crocheted bags. She has a Crocheted Bag pattern as well as a Jolly Chunky Bag pattern. I had chunky yarn leftover from my needlepoint pillow. So, of course, I planned to make the Jolly Chunky bag. I got the right size hook out and put it with the yarn. Well, when I went to make the bag, I accidentally downloaded the Crocheted Bag pattern. As I finished up the bottom in the above picture, I realized this bag was going to be monstrously big so I started to make some adjustments.

Here the bag is finished except for weaving in all the ends. There were a lot of ends!

Peanut the dog is jealous that the bag is getting my attention instead of her.

And, it turned out terrifically. About halfway up, I started decreasing about every other row. I just kind of eye-balled it and decreased as it needed.

Crocheted handles seem to stretch too easily with my overloaded bags so I used some recycled nylon handles. I also added a green shoestring to the top so I can close it.

And I love the little flowers that were part of the pattern. I'm really happy with this bag.

Crocheted Charger Cord

I saw this pattern on Through the Loops and since I had a very small portion of Koigu yarn left I  decided my charger cord needed embellishment. It wasn't quite enough to cover the whole cord, but it still brightens up the cord, uses up a tiny scrap of yarn, and makes me smile. It also makes it much easier to find on my creatively crazy desk.

Finger Knit Coaster

Some time earlier this year, I taught some little girls to finger knit and we all made lovely finger knit necklaces. I brought my necklace home, but a fuzzy purple necklace didn't really go with my wardrobe. Still, I hung on to it. Then, the other day, I decided it would make a lovely coaster. I used some extra stretchy sock yarn (I am almost done with my second sock.) to crochet over the finger knit chunky yarn and made this lovely little coaster. It is just right for my mug of tea.

Clay Crochet Hooks

 I had seen adorable crochet hooks made with bake clay online and picked up a couple of these on sale in the US. My favorite clay-covered crochet hooks were red with white dots so red and white were the logical choices for colors.

 I used a bamboo handle crochet hook to judge how far up the crochet hook the clay should go. My work area is lined with wax paper to avoid mess and color transfer and I had a packet of wet wipes nearby to clean my hands between color changes. Here you can see two piles of clay dots. The smaller ones were the best, but oh-so-hard to get just right.

 I lined a 9x13 baking tray with aluminum foil because you probably shouldn't have the clay in direct contact with things you plan to use for food later. The directions on the package were a bit sparse and I judged the "per inch" part to refer to the length. Since I sort of scorched my hooks, I'm thinking it was actually referring to thickness.

But, even with a few scorch marks, my hooks came out lovely and are so much easier to work with now that they have built-up handles. Two packages of clay made eight crochet hook handles in case you want to try it. Also, I rolled the clay into handle size first and then inserted the hook rather than wrapping the clay around the hook. I also kept the flattened piece on each hook free of clay just like it was on the bamboo hook. The tutorials I found online all seemed to cover this up, but I think it is important to leave it as is for comfort's sake.

Crochet Correction

 I'm making the Granny Stripe Afghan from Attic 24. I originally started it as a stash buster and quickly realized I actually didn't have enough stash yarn to make it. That's why there are some single stripes in the beginning. Also, I realized later that the red was wool not acrylic like the others. And the more rows I added, the tighter the foundation red wool seemed to become. Unfortunately, I had done way too many stripes to want to rip it out and start over. And, while you aren't supposed to be able to rip the foundation out of crochet, I decided it was worth the risk.

 First, I cut off the foundation chain and the top half of the Granny Stripe.

 Then, working on 6-10 stitches at a time, I cut between the stitches.

 Next, I slip stitched a ball of blue yarn to match the second granny stripe row to the edge. Then, for each stitch, I slipped the crochet hook through the loops at the bottom/top, pulled out the loose red threads, and pulled the blue yarn through the loops to hold them together. After that, I chained three before moving on to the next stitch.

As you can see here, it actually worked fairly well. Since I plan to make multiple border rows, I'll be able to cover over these stitches in the end and hide any twists. If I was making something I didn't plan to add a border to, this would not work nearly as well. Also, since this is going to be a couch afghan for my husband and I plus the cat and the dog to snuggle under, having a less than perfect beginning row doesn't bother me and no one else will mind either. Plus, it did loosen up the bottom row without my having to rip out a bunch of other rows.

My Ravelry page for this project is here.