Friday, August 7, 2015
Tutorial: Lo-So Crochet Tote Bag
While rooting through one of the large bags of yarn that I keep hidden stored in the bedroom cupboard, I found a bag-within-the-bag that is - cringe - my Bag of Shame. Therein I found my little stash of started projects that had been abandoned in favour of something more exciting. Including a bunch of neat little cotton squares, bordered and stacked and ready to go:
They were supposed to be a cushion cover but upon looking at them again, I thought they might make a nice bag ... but the sewing! Bleurgh: sewing a lining for a cotton bag is just so much hassle.
Then I had a brainwave: instead of sewing a lining for a bag, why not sew a bag for the lining? And the Low Sew (Lo-So!) crochet tote bag was born. I wish it were a No-Sew (No-So :-) ) bag, but I haven't figured that one out yet.
- crochet squares in a pattern of your choice - a linen shopping bag (even one that has a printed logo: the logo will be covered by your crochet work. I bought plain linen bags on Amazon for 99c.)
- a darning needle
- a sharp sewing needle
- strong sewing thread in a colour close to the colour of the bag
I simply sewed the squares together (but you can crochet them together or use the join-as-you-go method) and placed them on the bag to determine how much bigger the bag was:
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| Toy car not necessary, but apparently helpful |
You want your panel to be slightly bigger than the linen bag, so I crocheted two rows of double crochet at the top and bottom, and one row of half-double crochet on each side. I did this on the front (pic on the left) and back (right) panel.
I then turned them face to face and sewed them together on three sides, leaving the top open. I turned the crochet bag/cover right-side out, and slipped the linen bag inside.
Taking a sewing needle and strong sewing thread (I simply doubled mine), I sewed the top of the crocheted bag to the top of the linen bag, so that the linen bag became the lining of the crochet bag! Sneaky, eh?
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| Please look closely at amazing sewing technique and do not look at unmanicured nails. Thank you. |
To stop the linen bag from wrinkling up inside its crochet cover, I simply turned the entire thing inside-out again and stitched the crochet bag and the linen lining together at the corners - just a few strong stitches to anchor it, that's all.
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