Crocheted Bags

Hello everyone! Today we have a hefty blog taking you through three different attempts I had recently at making crocheted bags with fabric linings. As most of you may know, I went on quite a crochet journey last year and am proud of how my skills have improved. I also received a sewing machine as a gift last year and have been working to get more comfortable using it. Crocheted bags with fabric linings seemed to be the perfect way to combine the two!

The first bag I attempted was back before Christmas. I had a bunch of small, crocheted squares that I made a while ago to use up some little ends of yarn and thought that they could be turned into a colorful bag. 

I used some green yarn to crochet all the squares together, making sure all of the thicker seams were facing one way. 

I then connected the two panels I had made with the same switch, making sure to only crochet on 3 sides so that there was an opening. 

I then used the same green yarn to crochet a strap across the top of the bag. Since the bag had some thicker seams on the inside from where I attached the squares, I thought that it would be a good idea to create a fabric lining for the bag to cover up these seams. I (somewhat) followed the Youtube tutorial below, but ended up not making the lining big enough to be able to sew it in inside-out and ended up just hand-sewing it into the bag as you will see in the photos.

This bag was by no means perfect, but once I got the strap and lining all set, I thought it was pretty cute for my first try! I ended up giving this bag to my bestie for Christmas so here's hoping she likes it still!

My second attempt at a bag was to use two colors of yarn and do alternating stripes of color. For this bag, instead of making two panels, I just made a larger rectangle that I could fold over onto itself and just attach on the two sides. One side of the panel had small knots from where I changed yarn for each stripe.

I then started the strap of the bag on each side so that it was already an inch or so away from the top of the bag before I started on the lining. 

Then it was time to line this bag. This time, I followed the YouTube tutorial much more closely and used pins to keep everything secure as I was sewing. The lining came out much better than my first attempt, but I still managed to make it slightly too small so had to sew it from inside the bag. I did, however, do my first attempt at using my sewing machine to sew crochet and fabric together and it went very well!

And that is just about where I left that bag. I sewed the lining in, and the strap is started, but I have not yet finished crocheting it. I will get to it eventually!

My final and most recent bag just also happens to be my favorite! I wanted to try a fun pattern with yarn changes but really got sick of having to cut and change my yarn when doing the pattern with the stripes above. I found a tutorial of how to do a checkered pattern that crocheted in the yarn that was not being used which I much preferred to cutting off and changing color with each square. Below is the YouTube tutorial that I used; I didn't follow the tutorial exactly in terms of making the same bag, but did follow the approach to get the checkered pattern. 

I decided to make each side of the bag a different checkered pattern with two colors; I made one side red and pink and the other blue and green. I also used a fun light purple yarn to connect the two panels and to create a cohesive edge at the top opening of the bag.

I didn't take pictures of how I made the fabric lining as I did it much the same as the other two times, taking special care to measure correctly. I used a light purple fabric that matched the accent yarn I had used to attach the panels. This third time I finally made it the correct size so was able to slide it onto the bag and sew it on inside out and then flip the bag onto itself. 

I hand-sewed on some snaps as well and this is how the bag turned out! I have been using this as my purse for a week or so now and am really proud of this one! I still have some areas I could perfect, but I'm happy with how far I have come.

Thank you for reading this longer blog! I hope you enjoyed seeing how my skills improved as I kept working on this idea. Let me know which bag is your favorite in the comments below!

 - Rebecca

P.S. Today's photo on the homepage is from Pexels user Avni Jain:
www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photography-of-colorful-yarns-635002/