If there's a good part about saying goodbye, it must be in the gifts! I love making presents and while farewells aren't my favourite, at least there's an opportunity for crafting involved.
Last night I whipped up a crochet gift bag to hold a wine bottle. I had seen a pattern somewhere, but I couldn't find it when I needed it, so I did my best. I used Bernat crochet cotton and it took about 2.5 50g balls to make this project. Basically, I worked 2 circles in hdcs and then crocheted the two layers together to make a stable bottom. (See the handy photo.)
Then, after crocheting one round in the backloops only, I continued in hdcs all the way up, joining each round with a slip stich and starting each round with 2 ch. I worked two rounds near the top in hdc, ch, hdc, ch, etc. to give a spot for the ribbon to be laced through.
To make the handles, ch 11 and then skip over 7 hdcs before completing the round. On the next round, slip stich through all of the ch stitches and then just continue on. I did a round of slip stitches around the top for a neat finish.
Finally, the flip flops! Also crafted in Bernat cotton, these only used a fraction of a three different colours. I LOVED making the flowers....I'm envisioning some cute baby caps in the near future with big girly blossoms on the side!
To make the flipflops, I bought a pair of rubber flops at Michael's for $1.50 and wrapped and knotted green crochet cotton around the upper piece. Then, using a sweet pattern I found on this awesome site, I created two flowers from two different colours. Finally, I attached each flower using a safety pin (pin it through the green yarn, the flower, and the green yarn again to give it a good hold).
Estimated cost for the wine bag: $5.00
Estimated cost for the flip flops: $4.50
Gifting and thrifting. ;) There you have it.
