March {crochet} Madness

Lately I've been on a bit of a mad tear crocheting small projects with cotton yarn, or even alternative materials like string, cord and jute twine.  Yep, twine.  The same kind I tie up my tomato plants with every year, and the same stuff I watched my Mom work macrame knots with when I was a kid.  It all started with a book I checked out from my local library a couple of months ago entitled "Quick Crochet, Huge Hooks" by Sally Harding.  If you crochet even just a little bit, I highly recommend finding a copy this small book packed with completely do-able projects.  Luckily, no one else in my area seems to want it, so I've been able to renew with free will, although I have noticed that copies sell pretty cheaply on Amazon.  Anyhow, I fell in love with a couple of twine shopping bags detailed in this book, as well as a few other bags and small projects using yarn or string, and a circle rag rug made from fabric strips.  Hey, we all have extra fabric strips!  Actually, it would be a fantastic use of leftover binding strips... hmmmmm... but I'll save that for another post.

So I got out my trusty P hook, bought up all the twine from my local True Value and began madly crocheting shopping bags.  It turns out the twine is a lot easier to work with than I thought it would be, although having some experience crocheting with cotton yarn (or other materials with little to no give) would probably help.  The first bag I made a lot like the one in the book, using fabric strips for contrast stripes.  I strung some catchy wooden beads on it when I was finished, and mailed it to my Aunt in California.  Since then, I've been trying a number of variations on the pattern, using different combinations of string and cotton yarn with the twine in a wide array of striping patterns.  The bags have been a blast to make and I'm currently designing and making an extra large version for one of my brother's co-workers.  Check out some examples below...

The bags are crocheted holding two strands of twine together at once, which makes them super strong and pretty roomy, as you can see below... although I had to tweak the pattern a bit to get them this size.  I should go back and count how many rows I added.  I took one grocery shopping and it worked out really well!

I have been on the lookout for parachute cording and some other string alternatives to use as stripes, so I plan on making plenty more.  It only takes me about 4 hours to crochet one bag, so it's a really good project for evening idle time, or a car ride.

I've also been working on some smaller projects using cotton yarn.  I recently discovered the Ravelry site, which I absolutely love perusing for patterns and new ideas.  I also highly recommend the blog Moogly for lots of great projects and gifts that work up quickly.  If you haven't been there yet... check it out!  I just made several soap savers which I'll be giving family and friends from their Pampering Massage Soap Saver pattern... if you've got 30 minutes, some cotton yarn and an H or I hook laying around, you can whip one of these puppies up in a flash.

As you can see, I added wooden beads to the ends of my drawstrings instead of just tying knots at the end, just for a little extra flair.

I've also picked up some little patterns on a variety of websites and blogs for crocheting decorations like flowers, leaves and owls.  So I just turned some of those practice pieces into decorations for some Mason jar cozies that I've been making from a fabulous pattern at the fibre company blog.  

The two I've pictured above are both wide-mouth pint jars, but the blog post shows some amazing striped ideas for a variety of jar sizes, including directions for crocheting two different sized hearts.  I'll be sending a few of these to my cousin in South Carolina, who owns and operates a fabulous boutique and salon and is as much a fan of the jar as I am.  

Next on my radar is a jute basket from the Crochet Me site with some really cool bead embellishments... I think I'm in a bit of a manic mode with projects these days.  Hey, who needs spring cleaning, anyway???