Tote Bag Tutorial

Hello everyone,
 I love this house. We moved in here last July and it really suits us. Our computer desk sits right next to the kitchen window. I love looking out to see what is going on out in the neighborhood. Right now it is snowing, again. I love the snow. We are expecting another huge storm on Thursday. I work 3/4 of a mile away from my house, so it doesn't bother me when it snows. I walk to work anyway.
 I have been working on a tote for the Everything Zen group on Ravelry. I promised one of our members a while back that I would write the pattern and post a tutorial. I think she wanted a video tutorial, but that would have taken me forever and it would have been really long. So I made the bag and took a LoT of pictures. The rest of this post is about this bag.

The body of the bag is made in one piece and then the sides are sewn up. The straps are made seperately and then attached with buttons. I used white cotton, worsted wt. and an H hook. The stitches for the body of the bag are hdc.
 You start in the middle of the bottom of the bag and work off of both sides of the foundation ch.
 To start ch 48.  Hdc in the third ch from the hook (2ch in the beg. counts as the first hdc, here and throughout the pattern) and hdc across. You should have 47 hdc. Turn and ch 2, then hdc across. Repeat until you have 6 rows.

When you get to the end of row 6, ch 9. Fasten off.

 Then at the other end of row 6 attach yarn with a slip stitch in the last hdc and ch 10. Hdc in the 3rd ch from the hook.

Hdc across, there should be 65 hdc.

Turn and ch 2, hdc across. Continue until you have 8 rows with 65 hdc. This is where I changed color. I used scraps and have four colors in addition to the white. I did two rows of purple here.

Change back to white and crochet four rows. Then the next color change. All the way to the last color change.

Here I crocheted four more rows in white and then fastened off.

Now for the other side. Turn your work around, right side facing you still. Work into the bottom of the foundation chain. 47 hdc.

Kind of hard to see, but you can do it. :)  From here you follow the same directions as the first side. 6 rows of 47 hdc. The ch 9 and fasten off. Attach yarn to opposite end and ch 10. Hdc in to 3rd ch from hook and hdc across for a total of 65 hdc. Same as first side. 8 rows of 65 hdc. Then the first color change, two rows of that color and then four of white. Until you have something that looks like this.

Now you are ready to sew the sides together. This is easy. Fold the longer piece in until the ends meet in the middle. I used the whip stitch to sew them together. I used one piece of yarn for the bottom and sewed across to close, then, with another piece of yarn, I whip stitched up the side.

As long as your stripes match up, you are good to go. Once you get the sides sewn up and you have the body of the bag, then attach the white yarn, with a slip stitch to the top row and sc around. I did two rows of sc to finish it off.
Next are the straps. For these I chained 93. In second stitch from hook sc, then sc across. I changed color and crocheted 92 sc stitches across the top of the white row of sc. Fasten off. Then attach different color to the bottom of the white row and sc across, working stitches into the bottom of the white row. Fasten off. Then to finish the strap, attach white to either side of strap. Hdc to the last stitch in the row. Work three hdc in the last stitch and work three hdc evenly along end of strap. Then three hdc in first stitch of new color and hdc to the end of that row. Again, at the end of the row, three hdc then work three hdc evenly at end edge, thn three hdc in beg. stitch. Hdc to where you started and fasten off.

 Make one more strap. I then attached the straps by sewing buttons on with the cotton yarn I made the bag with. Here it is.

And the bottom.

I really hope you can follow this pattern. It wasn't hard to make, I just worry about my pattern making skills. If you have any questions at all, leave me a comment and I will do my best to answer. Happy stitching. :)



PS. I got the Liebster Award from Jennifer at Thistlebear. I will blog about that tomorrow. Thank you Jennifer.