A new beach bag – with thanks to Annaboos House

I’m starting the year with a flurry of bag making. Crochet bags, of course. Ive been busy designing but that takes time, so its brilliant that Sarah from Annaboos House has agreed that we can have her lovely beach bag as Bagalong bag of the month in March 2016.

When I went over to Black Sheep Wools in Warrington last month, they had the original bag and I immediately fell in love with it. They had plenty of the Rico Creative Aran cotton that is used to make it, so I chose some of my own colours and got started.

As its a beach bag, I chose sea and sand colours. I’ve not used Rico Creative aran before but it is very nice to work with and it works up very easily. The pattern is also very well explained and is a mixture of plain dc stitches (USA sc) with three ripple panels. I decided to do the ripples in sea blues and greens and the straight rows in sandy, stone and grass colours.

I’m really pleased at the way its turned out…

The pattern by Sarah of Annaboos House is very well written, easy to follow and you can download a printable pdf version from Black Sheep Wools:

Link to free pattern for the original beach bag

With Sarah’s kind permission I opted to change not only the colourway but the handle and top of the bag to give you a different option and a different look.

The original beach bag is slightly taller and has an equal number of stitches in all the rows. After lining the bag, Sarah chose some white faux leather handles, which look great.

My bag is slightly flared at the top and I added flaps and simple dowel handles to give a lovely retro look…

I’ve put together a little tutorial below just to give you extra info on how I made the handles, but first some more exciting news.

Yarn packs are available!

The original bag by Sarah at Annaboos House was produced in conjunction with the lovely people at Black Sheep Wools in Warrington, where I visited last month.

They love both bags and have put together two really good value yarn packs in both colourways just in time for our Bagalong in March 2016. Just click on the pictures below to go straight to the Black Sheep Wools site to grab your yarn pack.

The Crafternoon Treats Beachy bag

As promised, here is a bit more information about my beach bag.

First, here are the colours used, in order of the rows of the original pattern:

Rows

Colours for the handle flaps

Flaps 1 and 2 – two rows of dc in: Pistachio, powder, clay,tangerine, light blue, mustard

Flaps 3 and 4 – two rows of dc in: Tangerine, clay, powder, pearl grey, mustard and smokey orange

Final round (top of the bag and round the flaps: Nougat

Beachy bag – how its different at the top

My bag handles are very simple; just 12 inch (30cm) lengths of 1cm wooden dowel, lightly painted and waxed and held in place with crochet flaps. You can get wooden dowel in loads of places – any hardware or DIY shop may stock it but you can also buy pre-cut lengths from several Ebay sellers. I got mine from the ebay shop Trustleaf and bought 10 dowels for £6.00. I am adding the link here, but Ebay does change so it might not be current after March 2016.

Ebay dowels from Trustleaf 

To balance the handles I added a slightly flared top to the bag.

To make the lovely beach bag in the Beachy colourway, simply follow the pattern to row 52.

Rows 52-57 are all rounds of dc stitches. I increased 2 stitches (one at each side of the bag) by working 2dc into the same stitch in rows 52, 53, 54, 55 and 56 and increased by just one stitch in row 57. That gave me 11 more stitches for the start of the next ripple section, giving an extra ripple repeat.

Rows 58 – 64 were worked in the same way as the original pattern (using the colours listed above). I omitted the last ripple row (65) and made two dc rows (rows 66 and 67) before making two flaps to form the retro handles.

I added the flaps BEFORE lining the bag as I wanted the lining to be attached to the bottom of the final dc round at the top of the bag.

Making the handle flaps

• When row 67 was complete, I laid the bag flat, making sure that the sides of the base were lined up so that the bag was exactly lined up for the front and bag.
• I then measured the point that was the centre of the top and used my 12 inch (30cm) length of wooden dowel (used for the handle) to mark the position of the end of each flap. I added stitch markers at these points.
• I then counted 14 stitches inwards for each flap, adding another marker. For my bag, the central gap between the handle flaps was 20 stitches.
• I repeated this for both sides so that I now had four stitch markers on each side, and was ready to start the handle flaps.
• These are simple rows of dc stitches, worked on top of row 67. I then joined the yarn at the first stitch marker for each flap and work 2 rows in each colour (see above for the flap colours). Each of my flaps consisted of 10 rows.
• Finally, I used nougat to crochet a round of dc stitches all around the top of the bag and around each handle flap.
• You can see the flaps in this photo, with my stitch markers still in place.

Sewing the handle flaps in place

Using nougat, sew the outer edge of each flap closed, and attach the bottom edge of the flap to the stitches in row 67. Leave the other edge of the flap open as this will form the pocket for the wooden dowel for the handle.

Finishing the handles

Once all four flaps are sewn into place, with the outer edges closed and the inner edges open, all that remains is to add the lengths of wooden dowel.

They look quite good natural but I added one coat of a match pot I had hanging around in a duck egg blue and then waxed it before inserting it, one end at a time, into the pockets made by the flaps.

I’ve wanted to make handles like this for a while and I am so pleased that Sarah from Annaboos House approves of them!

So, there we go, another bag for our Bagalong group on Facebook and for anyone who wants to join in. Enjoy! And I look forward to seeing all your lovely bags xxxxx