The new bagalong bag for August!

During July, the Bagalong with Crafternoon Treats group on Facebook joined together to make the fat bottomed bag in tribute to the late Marinke Slump – Wink of A Creative Being. The standard and loveliness of the bags produced was fantastic and I have an album of fat bottomed bags on my Facebook page Crafternoon Treats showing them off. It is still being updated with new ones…

For August, we had a bit of a vote and the bag that proved the most popular was the cluster stitch bag from the Australian blog BobWilson123, which is run by Clare, who devised this lovely pattern. A few of the Baglongers have already made this bag and you can see its appeal… The bag above was made by Helen Goodman who made several of the ones below too. The others are by Nina Camilleri (top left) and Vicky Stanton (top right).

So, this is the bag we are making as a group in August. Later in the month I will be working with one of the other members to set her design into a tutorial and pattern and we will have a second, more challenging bag project too.

Here is a sneaky peak of the bag by Stefania Porfiriadou…

Links to the pattern and tutorials

• BobWilson123 video tutorial on YouTube
• BobWilson123 written pdf instructions
• My video on the neat join for the circular rounds of the bag base
• My video on doing a standing stitch (treble; UK terms, double crochet; US terms)

My cluster stitch bag

What I’m using

I’ve made a start on my bag using some Stylecraft Weekender Super Chunky in lovely ice cream shades – I thought this would make a perfect small project bag for getting out with my crochet in the late summer.

It is seriously chunky but I’m using a Clover Soft Touch 6mm hook to make it good and firm as I only want to do a simple lining (or no lining at all!!!) for this bag.

Making a neat circular bag base

I’m using two techniques to make sure the bag base looks as neat as possible. As you can see from my progress photos, closing each circle using a darning needle is much better than a slip stitch. Combine that with using a standing stitch treble at the start of each round and you can hardly see where the joins are at all!!!!

I tell you, I’m never doing a slip stitch join and starting a round with three chains again!!!

My video on doing a standing stitch (treble; UK terms, double crochet; US terms):

Progress on my bag base

I stopped at round 6 for my bag base as this already measured 21 cm (8 and a half inches) across.

I’ll be posting updates of my cluster stitch bag progress this week but here are those links again:

• BobWilson123 video tutorial on YouTube
• BobWilson123 written pdf instructions
• My video on the neat join for the circular rounds of the bag base
• My video on doing a standing stitch (treble; UK terms, double crochet; US terms)

Later in the week I will post a link to a pdf of printable instructions in UK crochet terms for the base and the cluster bag and handles. Til then, happy bag making 🙂