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!