The Bowerbird's Weblog

Rag bags are glad bags!

I recently went up to Coles Bay for a few days with some friends. (Hi mel!)  Between us there were lots of baby sleep times which meant we spent a fair bit of time in the house…just….waiting….for…..them….to….wake. Some people may have found this frustrating considering the weather wasn’t bad  and the Freycinet challenge was afoot.  But for me, it was sooo relaxing having very little to do and lots of space to do it. I took up a whole pile of old t-shirts and got snipping and repurposing. In no time at all there before me was a magnificent basket and a new (old) beachbag! It is amazingly satisfying to create something useful out of something worn and old. The trick to whipping up one of these baskets rapidly is to use a REALLY big crotchet hook, and some stretchy fabric. The most time consuming part is cutting up your “yarn”. But get a good left brain conversation going while you are at it, and how the time flies! Here are some basic instructions:

What you need:

Old t-shirts (about 8 for the basket pictured), Fabric scissors (or any sharp ones on hand), 15mm crotchet hook, big stitch marker(optional- keyring works well!)

A basket for your rags?

Directions:

Cut the hem off the bottom of the first t-shirt (this bit crotchets up a bit thick and bulky). Begin cutting around the t-shirt from the bottom up in a spiral so you have one continuous length of what will become your yarn. 1.5-2cm wide should give you a relatively firm basket. Cut all the way up to the armpits. (You can use the sleeves and the top of the shirt too, when you ge to it. Cut back and forth instead of around.  I find these bits make great rags for the shed so I don’t bother.) Wind the yarn into a ball as you go. Do the same for all the other t-shirts. If you don’t like joining in ends while you are crotcheting, you can sew the ends of your balls together and make one GIANT ball before you start but it is a little more awkward to work with!

Yarn? Ball!

Start crotcheting! I find with little ones around I lose my count fairly regularly, so I like to put a stitch marker (an old key ring works well if your knitting ones are too small) around the first chain to remind me where the round started.

THE BASIC BASE:

Chain (ch) 6 and join into a ring with a slip stitch (sl st).

Round 1: ch 1, 11single crotchet (sc) into ring, sl st into first chain. (total of 12 sts)

Round 2: ch 1, 1sc into sl st, 2sc in each space of round 1, sl st to first ch to end round (24 sts)

Round 3: ch 1, 2sc in next space, ( 1 sc in next space, 2sc in next space)Rpt to end. sl st to join round (36 sts)

Continue inreasing 12 sc on each round. ie increase every 3rd stitch on next round, every 4th stitch on the round after that and so on until the base is as big as you desire. (The pictured basket has 60 stitches – 5 rounds) If the base begins to curl upwards increase more stitches on each round. If it begins to ripple then do a round or two without increasing until it flattens out. (It depends a bit on your yarn and the size of your hook as to how this works out!)

UP THE SIDES:

continue crotcheting rounds without increasing until it is as deep/high as you like! (The pictured basket is 14 rounds high)

THE FINAL ROWS: (nearly there!)

Round 1: Ch 1, (1sc in each of the next 5 spaces, Decrease one) rpt to end, sl st to join the round (52 sts)

Round 2: Ch 1, 1sc in each space around, sl st to join the round. TIE OFF END. Weave in loose ends. WAHLAH! Teasure from trash!

An easy way to carry your beach gear in a t-shirt

For the beach bag I basically did the same thing, but used thinner strips of t-shirt yarn. I also used a double crotchet, instead of a single.  (These two things combined make it a bit more holey and stretchy.) Oh, and I chained some handles onto the top.