Crocheted Bag with Traditional and Freeform Elements

Finished Freeform Crochet Bag

My daughter came home from this summer describing a bag she had seee someone carrying and wanted me to recreate. Not being a knitter or crocheter, she went to my closet & pulled out my Granny Square Bag (instructions are here)

and said it was the opposite of that. Or at least that how she thought she saw it. Maybe. The bag should be striped and the straps should be squares. And it should look great with her favorite coat, which is a mix of about 10 different prints.



I pulled out my box of needlepoint yarn scraps and chose a palette..

Granny Squares for the Strap

I knew she wanted the straps to be squares, so I did a simple 3 round granny square (pattern is here. )That went really quickly, but the body stumped me.

figuring what colors will go with the straps

beginning of the body

After playing around with a few different options and flipping through many crochet stitch books I settled on the Single Crochet - Zigzag pattern from Sasha Kagan's "Crochet Inspiration." I did random colors on the striping, with mostly single rows of a color, but occasionally I did a couple of rows of a color.



At this point I stitched the bag to the straps. I then did a sort of controlled freeform flap piece that I stitched onto the back of the bag.

Freeform-ish flap piece on the blocking board.

Back of the bag

Finished bag, with coat.

I lined the whole bag with an old sweater that I threw in the washer & felted. My daughter tends to use her bags with gusto, so I was sure to use very strong stitches and a heavy lining. There's a lot going on with all the patterns in the coat and bag. But she's happy!

Crocheted Granny Square Bag

Crocheted Granny Square Bag with Striped Strap

I used odds and ends of needlepoint wool & washed it in warm water in the machine to full it a bit. I found a piece of vintage knit boucle from my grandmother’s stash for the lining. Yes, it took me three years to finish this one… A day to crochet it, a day to line it and 3 years of it lying around in the “to do” pile.

The squares are made by doing 5 rounds of a traditional granny square pattern as follows:

Main color is used for Rnd 5 to edge each square.

Make 12 squares using different color combos (no two squares alike!) on the first four rounds


Ch4, join with sl st to form a ring.

Rnd 1:Ch 3, 2 dc in ring, ch 3, * 3 dc in ring, ch3. Rep from * 2 more times. Join and break off on this and every rnd.

Rnd 2:Join yarn in any ch-3 sp, ch 3, work 2 dc, ch 3 and 3 dc in same sp, * ch 1, work 3 dc, ch 3 and 3 dc in next ch-3 sp. Rep from *2 more times, end ch 1.

Rnd 3:Join yarn in any ch-3 sp, ch 3, work 2 dc, ch 3 and 3 dc in same sp, * ch 1, 3 dc in next ch-1 sp, ch 1 work 3 dc, ch 3 and 3 dc in next ch-3 sp(corner). Rep from * around end ch 1.

Rnd 4:Join yarn in any ch-3 sp, ch 3, work 2 dc, ch 3 and 3 dc in same sp, * (ch1, 3 dc in next ch-1 sp) twice, ch 1, work 3 dc, ch 3 and 3 dc in next corner sp. Rep from * around, end ch 1.

Rnd 5:With Main Color, sc in each dc and in each ch-1 sp, working 3 sc in ch-3 corner sps.

Create the strap by doing random colors of single crochet in the desired width (I did a 2" width) and length.

Assemble the bag by first joining 6 squares together for the front, and 6 together for the back.

Sew the ends of the strap together, Then sew onto the front and back. Cut lining to fit and attach with blanket stitch.

These are my working notes, and hopefully correct, accurate and understandable. And feedback is welcomed!