Hello readers. Today I’m sharing a bag and wine bottle carrier market set I made for my sister. I mixed crochet (wine bottle carrier) and knitting (market bag) on this set. The colors are absolutely wonderful for a fall stroll through a farmer’s market!
About the Market Set
Like my textured pumpkins pattern/post, I used yarn my sister picked on a trip to Italy. The yarn is Adriafil Mistero in colorway 071, Bordeaux blue orange. She originally requested the bag, so I made the exact version she found and wanted. I had yarn left over, so, I whipped up a second piece to make a set.
The yarn is a single-ply wool/acrylic blend. Admittedly, and as noted in the pattern, the wool is not optimal for the market bag, due to the possibility of stretch. However, the artistic director (my sister) still wanted the bag made from the wool. I will update later if the yarn holds up to repeated use!
For the wine bottle carrier, a bit of stretch is not a big deal. A wine bottle is heavy, but the handle is constructed as part of the fabric of the bag, so it should hold up to normal wear.
The market bag took a while to knit, and I had one “do-over” when I made it too narrow. I would estimate the total time at 5 hours. The wine bottle carrier was much faster, about 2 hours at most.
Market Bag
For the market bag, I used this free knitting pattern by Sheep and Stitch. The pattern is excellent and I highly recommend it. The free version includes a full tutorial video and photos of some instructions. The bag is mostly knit in one piece, then the handle is picked up along the edges. I thought the video tutorial did a great job of explaining how to pick up the stitches.
My yarn was thicker than the yarn required for the pattern. I modified the pattern by using larger needles, but I kept the same stitch count (number of cast on stitches). I knitted fewer rows of the lace pattern to reach the required dimensions. Because I had fewer rows of the lace pattern, I also picked up fewer stitches for the handle piece. I calculated the number of stitches in proportion to how many “bumps” were on each side of the lace. The pattern does a great job of describing picking up stitches in these “bumps.”
Wine Bottle Carrier
For the wine bottle carrier, I used my own pattern. It is just about the simplest pattern for a crochet wine bottle carrier that you can imagine. I love when my own patterns come back around in a project. It gave me a chance to be my own pattern tester again!
The yarn was thinner than the scrap versions of the wine bottle cover I made to design the pattern. The standard versions hold 3 strands of yarn together. I followed the instructions, ending with 30 stitches in the base round. The pattern is already written for this, no adjustments necessary. The color changing yarn was quicker to work with than the marling technique I used in the originals. This is a great project to consider if you have some leftover color change yarn, and they make great gifts. I have brought many of these to birthday or Christmas parties as a small gift (with a bottle of wine inside, of course).
Well, that’s all I have for you all today. I’m hoping to share more of my projects, with or without patterns, going forward. But let me ask my readers: do you want to see more project posts and pattern reviews? Are you only interested in original patterns? Let me know in the comments!
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