Fat bottomed bag – TaDah!

The project chosen for the Crafternoon Treats Bagalong in July is a fat bottomed bag inspired by the lovely crochet blogger Wink of A Creative Being, who died tragically on the 28th June 2015.

As a tribute to Wink, we all wanted to show how much she had inspired us and make this gorgeous bag. Many of the crocheters in the Facebook Bagalong group have raced ahead and I’ll be posting in a few days to showcase their marvelous work. I have been a bit slow, I’ve had other work to do, I’ve been asked to write blog posts for other sites, including Craftsy (very exciting!), and I had to wait for my bag handles to arrive from an Etsy seller in Portugal called FrameYourBag.

The start of my fat bottomed bag

Deramores had very kindly sent me some of their own brand vintage chunky yarn to try out. Just a few colours but I was very impressed. This chunky yarn is a mixture of 50% acrylic and 50% merino wool. Its wonderfully soft and the colours are muted and very vintage. Just my colours in fact, although I’m not averse to using brighter palates…

I had made this square on holiday, thinking of maybe making a new project bag using some fabric that I’d bought recently. However, I felt the yarn really warranted a project that was a bit different – its own special project. But none came to mind, so I stored it away in a plastic bag in one of my stash boxes. When I saw the fat bottomed bag I dug it out again and got excited – it would be perfect worked up into this pattern. I got started but progress was a bit slow due to also having to help my daughter move flats in south London – two days horrendous driving left little time for hooking!

It did grow though and I worked the lovely muted colours with the lining fabric on hand to make sure they complimented each other well.

While I waited for the circular can handles to arrive, I spent a lot of faffing time, making a lining for the square, cutting strips of the lining fabric and adding lace and finally, working the top of the bag to create the gathers.

At the sides, which remain open when the bag is finished, I used Deramores Studio DK in a colour that went with the vintage lilac of the main square. I followed WInk’s pattern but used the DK with a 3.5mm hook. This draws up the bag much more, creating very gathered sides and a smaller opening, which I wanted. I did the same at the front and back but only sewed the sides in place.

Finally this afternoon, I had the flower decorations made and the handles arrived in today’s post! Yay!

The putting together didn’t take long in the end and as it was such a nice afternoon (for a change!) I worked on it in the garden with a cup of tea. Bliss and luxury…

And then I took an enormous number of garden photos, realising that the colours of the bag were very close to the lavender that is out in full bloom just now.

It looks good from the inside too…

And from the back…

I decided against ribbon or dangles, although I might work on a dangle or two at some point. My final finishing touch was a vintage brooch bought for my for my mum. It will be two years next week since I lost her, and as the brooch fitted in so perfectly, I thought that was a great way to add in a little tribute to her too.

In tribute to Wink

Many of us followed her blog and loved her upbeat style and colourful, fun projects. Tragically, behind the scenes she had been diagnosed with severe depression and was, as she said in a recent post, “in a very dark place.” It was still utterly shocking to read a post by her sister telling us that she had taken her own life.

In the next post I will list some mental health charities in the UK, USA and Australia as many Bagalongers have suggested that they would like to make a small donation after finishing their bag.