I showed you my last finished market bag, the Seaside Tote, on August 8th. Clearly, it’s easy to put off one project to work on another, and then another!
The third of the four market bag patterns I’ve chosen is The Market Bag, pattern #60551 from Lion Brand. There are over 400 finished examples of it in Ravelry! Quite different from my first two, Lion calls this bag “slouchy”, with a rounded bottom and just one strap. It’s much larger too, sixteen inches in diameter, compared to the ten-and-a-half or twelve-inch diameters of the other two I made.
I used Peaches and Cream’s “Shaded Denim” #133, a pretty variegated blue and white cotton yarn. I found my fourteen ounce cone (690 yards) at Sal’s, the Salvation Army Thrift Store, for just $2.99.
This bag got off to a quick and easy start. Its double crochet stitches are worked into the spaces between the stitches in the round below, instead of into them. This creates an interesting texture, as well as a very heavy and strong bag.
I finished it during the third evening I worked on it, only to discover this:
The far edges of the straps are aligned. The half of the strap laying on top (which I think I crocheted correctly) is much narrower than the half that’s underneath! Apparently I interpreted the directions for decreases very differently on the two nights I crocheted the strap. So much for mindlessly crocheting while watching a dvd!
It’s been sitting in time-out for a while. sigh. Although it wouldn’t be a big job to rip back and make the entire strap narrow, I’d rather make something else with this pretty blue yarn. I like the design of this hobo-style bag, the way the tapering width of the strap will support the weight of even an over-sized load, but I am petite and it’s simply too big and heavy-looking for me to feel comfortable using it. (I don’t carry a large purse either, preferring a little one that can hold only the barest of essentials.)
I highly recommend this as a project bag! It could easily hold an adult sweater or a blanket in progress.
The fourth bag pattern, the Crocheted Reusable Grocery Bag, designed by Cassie Edwards, only uses 150 yards of cotton yarn, which means it could be very fast to crochet. Maybe it will be the perfect market bag for next spring’s charity fund-raiser!
alottastitches 