Crochet crochet crochet

I've become a little obsessed with crochet!
I learned many years ago as a child and can vividly remember teaching myself to make yellow, brown and orange granny squares which I made into a fringed waistcoat! Yes, seriously!! I thought it was FAB. No photos though, sorry :)
Now I have a ripple blanket on the go

as well as a japanese flower scarf

 

 and I'm not happy as I've run out of the yellow yarn for the ripple so can't work on it tonight :(  

First set finished

 I decided what the flowers on these little bags were missing, a nice button in the centre, and a pair of leaves, courtesy of Lucy again, over in her attic. I like the idea of the matching scissor keepers, especially if, like me you are an untidy worker and scissors tend to get buried under stuff, or if, also like me, you go to classes where lots of people have the same scissors and get mixed up or lost.  Of course if the bag is intended for a non-crafty person they could instead be used for keys or something similar. Adam, 13, has decided he wants one too, (although obviously not with a flower on, or with a pretty flowery lining), so might make him one with dangly balls a la Lucy, maybe a blue one with red and white balls? Think he's going to have to join the queue!

The bag itself is very simple. 48 stitches and 48 ridges of garter stitch (so 96 actual rows) or thereabouts, pretty much knit until it is the size you want. I ended up with a square roughly measuring 10" which I then folded in half and seamed down each side. Then I cut a piece of fabric the same size PLUS half an inch all round, which again I folded in half, right sides together, and seamed down each side. By trial and error I found it best to put the zips in the top next, stitched by hand in a fairly large running stitch in the same wool as the bag was knitted in. Then I slipped the fabric lining in, turned over a hem at the top and slip-stitched it to the zip to cover the running stitches I had sewn with the wool. I'll take a few in-progress photos when I do the next one so you can see what I mean.

These are the make-up bags/pencil cases/crochet hook cases/or whatever-you-want-to-use-them-for cases that I've been making for christmas. They are decorated with cute little crochet flower zip-pulls that I adapted from Lucy's flower tutorial over on Attic 24  They aren't quite finished, but have a load more to do so will get on with those while thinking what else these need!