Hellooo everyone! Today , we’re crocheting a fun summer book bag. This bag features the Tunisian Bamboo Stitch, which we had learned several weeks ago. If you don’t remember the stitch, I’ll embed the tutorial here:
Let’s get to the pattern notes so you can get to crocheting!
Materials:
Yarn: Medium cotton yarn in any color(s) of your choice. You’ll need about 750 yards, or 400 g of yarn total.
Tunisian Hook: 4.5 mm
Additional materials: Yarn needle, scissors,
2 medium wooden rings (approx. 1.5 in/3.8 cm in diameter)
1 small wooden ring (approximately 0.5 inch / 1.3 cm in diameter).
Notes on the materials:
Yarn: You can use your favorite cotton yarn for this project. I used two different yarn brands for this project. Sadly, the blush colored yarn has been discontinued, but the grey and off-white yarns I used in the tutorial are both Comfy Cotton Blend, by Lion Brand Yarns. That yarn is available just about anywhere that sells yarn in the U.S. and they offer a variety of colors to choose from.
As I used three different colors, I will refer to them as colors 1 through 3 in the pattern to indicate color changes. Color 1 being blush, Color 2 is off white, Color 3 is grey.
Hook: You will require a Tunisian hook in order to complete this project.
Construction: The initial chain for this project will determine the bag’s width. Each row will add to the height of the bag. You’ll be crocheting a ling rectangle and folding it in half, so that the fold becomes the bottom part of the bag. Sew along the sides to close, and leave the top side open. You will then crochet the shoulder strap and sew that on.
Multiples: To resize the bag, just crochet a chain in even multiples.
Wooden Rings: I purchased a set of wooden rings in different colors from Amazon. You can find the set by copying and pasting the following link to your browser: https://amzn.to/3wlz2wi
| Size: Approx. 12 inches wide (30.5 cm) by 9 inches in height (22.8 cm). |
For those of you that would like the PDF pattern, you can purchase it below. The PDF includes 13 photos, stitch descriptions, notes, and lots of love! Each pattern purchase supports the channel so I can continue to create tutorials. THANK YOU to everyone that purchases pattern and watches my tutorials, you are all so wonderful!
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Bamboo Stitch Bag$ 4.00
Why are your patterns no longer free?
This is a question I’ve been receiving a lot lately, so I thought I would address it in this post (Though you might also see this re-posted in a few future posts as well). The variation of this question, which I recently received via email was “patterns are supposed to be free”. Now, normally, I just brush these types of rude questions and comments aside, but I just can’t anymore. So here it goes:
I no longer post free patterns because of the amount of work and effort that goes into each pattern and tutorial I create. A pattern takes weeks to create. From designing the project, to creating and writing the pattern, editing, testing, and finally publishing, it takes many, many days of counting, stressing, writing, crocheting, frogging, and even a few tears sometimes.
Then I film a tutorial for each pattern, which I post and share for free. For each tutorial, I need to crochet a new project, using the pattern (it’s an extra step that helps me test the pattern as well as photograph the steps for the PDF pattern). It takes several more hours, days, or even weeks (sometimes) to crochet an additional item for the tutorial. This is why I will sometimes only crochet a small sample when I crochet blankets, as a blanket can take up to a month to crochet depending on the pattern.
Tutorials can take anywhere from a few hours, to up to several weeks to film. Then I have to edit them and create a voice over (because I post the tutorial in English and in Spanish).
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE what I do, and I would love to do this as a full-time job, but the amount of work I put into each project would amaze people. As an example: I recently played around with a shawl pattern that took me 28 hours to create a just a sample of, which I then discarded and frogged because the pattern didn’t work out. That is time spent on a pattern that you will never see, and effort spent trying to create a project that I could share with you all. I could list out countless examples of projects that I have worked on over the last few years, but the list would go on for days.
All of the patterns and projects you see on my channel and on my blog are the amalgamation of YEARS of work. You wouldn’t expect to spend hours at your job and not receive anything for your efforts, correct? Well, neither do I! These patterns and tutorials don’t pay my bills or fund my lifestyle (I do have a day job that is not crochet related). Heck, they barely pay for the cost of the website, materials, and equipment. So please take that into account before sending me angry and rude emails about how “patterns are supposed to be free”.
To everyone that has supported my work, please know that every time I sell a pattern, or someone donates to my “Buy Me a Coffee” fund, I send a silent thank you to you (and do a happy dance). I can’t describe the sense of joy I feel every time I receive a sale or donation notification. So, from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU! If you watch my tutorials, know that it also helps support my work. Every minute of the tutorial you watch helps grow the channel, and to you I also say THANK YOU! If you don’t want to, or can’t buy a pattern or donate, simply letting the ads play on the tutorial, or leaving a comment or a like is more than enough.
Anyway, this turned into a much longer post than I anticipated, but I really needed to let that all out. It had been building for several months and I just couldn’t hold it in any longer. Remember to be kind, and thank you all for understanding.
