Crochet pencil cases

 This week I have been working on a completely new idea. As much as I love working on my cacti and bringing different characters to “life” I enjoy setting myself new challenges. I had an idea to see if I could work out how to make a simple lined pencil case that was crocheted. I knew I wanted it to just use double crochet stitches but to have a bit of interest as well. 

The first thing I thought I would try and work out was whether to do the lining or to do the crochet piece first. Both ways I thought could work and would have advantages but would give there own set of challenges as well. I decided that I would go with doing the lining first and then attached the crochet on with possible crocheting directly from the zip. Lining fabric picked along with a zip it was time to get the sewing machine out which I must admit felt a little strange having not used it for a few months. It did feel a little strange not adding an outer layer of fabric as I would normally have done in the past and seeing it with the wrong side of the fabric showing again was odd. 

I next did some hand stitching on the zip so that I had a foundation for my crochet as I did not want to make a separate piece of crochet and then stitch it on. It was a this stage where it was a lot of trial and error as although I knew what yarn I would be using and what size hook, I wasn’t sure if I would have too many stitches or too few. I think I gauged it nearly right and will adjust when I make my next one. Using two different colours meant I had to join at the end of each round rather than doing a spiral as I am used to with my cacti and again there are things I need to adjust next time but in the whole I am pleased with how the stripes went. I did weave in my ends as I went as was very lucky that my stripes matched very well with the depth of the lining. I should have done a swatch so that I could measure it out and therefore cut the fabric to the effect size. I guess I was just extremely lucky but now have a perfect model on which I can adjust future measurements on. 

I lastly add a couple of buttons to give a pop of colour against the navy and white cotton yarn of the crochet pencil case. I have a rather large stash of buttons so knew that I wouldn’t have too much trouble in finding ones that I thought would go. It is a good size if I wanted to use it to store my hooks in as currently they are in both a rather pretty tin as well as a lovely glass jar. 

Lastly, things I want to develop on my crochet pencil case is positioning of the fabric when attaching the zip. Width and depth of future cases. Colour choices of the cotton yarn. Development of stitches and how that will change the overall look. Embellishments using different types and shapes of buttons as well as bows. I can see me making several more of these in the not so distance future.

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