Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Cottage Tote bag (1974-2013)

A friend of mine was nice enough to give me an old craft magazine from 1974-75. In it were a ton of patterns for items they said you could make to sell at Bazaars (Craft shows). One of the items was this tote bag crochetted in the shape of a little house.


Now, I don't have a little girl in my family, but I just had to make this. I don't usually crochet much. I have a hard time following a crochet pattern and am much more of a knitter, but this pattern was simple enough to follow. I used Lily brand Sugar & Cream yarn. It's easily found at my local grocery chain for cheap; less than $2 a skein. You just crochetted the front and back of the house and then all the little pieces to sew on. Actually, the sewing together took me longer than the crochetting. Here is the finished project. I did a few things a little differently. I crochetted the roof in two pieces with decreases in the middle instead of doing the roof in four separate pieces. I added a background piece into the windows. I changed the color of the flowers from blue to orange and I did the grass in backstitch. This bag didn't call for a lining, but that might be a nice way to make it look more finished on the inside. (I won't show you the inside here.)


It was a fun project, but I can't imagine making a lot of these for a craft show.

The other project from that magazine I would LOVE to make are these little Dutch girl and boy dolls. (Aren't they cute?!) Like I said, I'm not a great crochetter, so these might need to wait. These patterns from an old craft magazine have inspired me to look through more old craft magazines and books for projects that are just as fun. Good ideas never go out of style.


2 comments:

aimee said...

This is super cute! I am so impressed that you made something like this, as it seems so detailed to me. Love the grass that you added!

And you're right, good ideas never go out of style. Wouldn't be surprised if today's designers comb through old craft magazines for ideas and ways to update the projects.

KayakChickee said...

Oh, I'm sure that's where a lot of craft ideas come from; just update the old ones. Just like fashion, even craft trends come around again.