I love calico!

After making the first draft pattern for The Calico Bag, I am now making another Calico Bag to troubleshoot the pattern. If you’re interested in this as a Crochet-Along (CAL), feel free to join in. And if you like this pattern and make a finished object, please let me know; I would love to see finished work or modifications of the patterns I make. If you’re on Ravelry, you may find me thru this page.

Work on the bag handle started last night and finished today. Below is a photo of the handle in progress.

Calico bag handle in progress.

The handle is worked in the round, and the entire 55 rounds should make a handle approximately 15 1/2 inches long. The color pattern of the handle depends entirely on your creative decisions. You may also refer to the tail of your calico cat for inspiration. Remember, stuff the handle with kapok (or other filling material) as you work. One pod of kapok is enough to stuff the handle. Below is a photo.

Preparing kapok for filling.

Crocheting the seams of the bag

For the bottom of the bag, I decided to use sl st as seaming method, and sc for the sides of the bag. Below is a photo of the seaming in sl st, worked on the wrong side of the bag. I used white yarn.

Sl st seaming for the bag's bottom.

For the sides of the bag, I decided that the sc seaming method would be more flexible and thus suitable, in contrast to the sl st seaming which is much tighter so I used for the bottom of the bag. Below is a photo of the seaming in sc, worked on the wrong side of the bag. I used a color that matched one of the two sides of the bag.

Sc seaming for the sides of the bag.

And finally here is the handle and the body of the bag ready for assembly.

The handle and the bag body ready for assembly.

Bag Lining and Snaps
You may also sew a lining for the bag (line the bag before attaching the handles), and use magnetic snaps instead of Velcro strips. Here (photo below), I have sewn a lining for the bag and used magnetic snaps. Thanks to Mimi Alesis for the tips on attaching magnetic snaps.

The Calico Bag can be lined with fabric, and magnetic snaps can be used instead of Velcro strips.

To attach the magnetic snaps, I crocheted two circles the same color as the bag lining and slightly larger than the snaps. Then I attached the snaps to the crocheted circles and sew these to the bag.

Attaching the magnetic snaps.

The design of this little bag of flowers is based on several patterns found in a Japanese magazine.

A new little floral bag for little girls!

The handle of the bag is a crocheted cylinder which I filled with kapok (plenty of kapok trees (tropical silk cotton) in our area, I picked the pods when they ripened last year). Kapok is moisture-resistant, quick-drying, resilient, buoyant fibre. Kapok is also supposedly highly flammable and too brittle for spinning.

Great stuff!

Detail of the flowers.

Above photo shows the crocheted flowers in detail and below is the pattern that I used for the flowers. Experiment with colors to produce different effects. A more elegant bag can be created, for example, by using a darker color (such as royal blue) or combinations of colors (for example, gray and dark red).

Use single or different colors for rows 1, 2 and 3 of this pattern.

I assembled the floral motifs together along the 5-ch loop as I crocheted, and made a hexagon shape for the bag. Other shapes may be explored.

Instead of a lining, I sewed together the open edges (the base of the outer petals) of the flowers together.