Stripey lucy bag

Hurrah! We have blogging lift-off today:-) Yes, my monitor arrived at lunchtime and I've been fiddling around trying to get as accurate a colour to the real knitted and crocheted thing as possible so I can post some photos!!

And here we have a bright start to the week with my Stripey Lucy bag - so called as Lucy from attic24 designed this and kindly wrote up a tutorial for all those who would like one of their own. I haven't quite finished this yet though as you can see the handles still need attaching and the flowers are half done as we speak. I have actually crocheted quite a few flowers now but I keep playing with the colours so I'll end up with twice as many as I'll need, but that's fine as I can save them to decorate another project sometime.....:-)

The bag itself is constructed with a simple circular base, increased to whatever size you fancy, then the increases stop and you carry on crocheting a tube till you think the height is right for your bag. The bag also has a lovely scalloped edging around the top - which is the same detailing as my stripey mitts but they were a Lucy pattern as well!

I didn't follow Lucy's recommended join as I didn't want to cut and knot the threads but it ended up looking a bit messy on the 'right' side of the bag - you can see it has a 'jog'/obvious join centre right of the picture. Rather than take it all back, I just turned it inside out as the join is a bit subtler:-) Next time I'll pay attention to the instructions:-)

So the bag is just waiting its little flower and leaf decorations and then it will be officially finished - my first FO of the year. This is a lovely quick crochet and works well with all the pattern details like the edging and the flowers. I went for a rainbow palette but I'm thinking this would look lovely in a more monochromatic colour scheme of chocolates and mochas or with an antiqued colour scheme of pale greens and muted pinks......mmmm!