holiday washing

howdy folks, 

Well, back from holiday camping can mean only one thing, a mountain of washing, and as I was hanging out yet another load I decided to finally get on with it and make myself a retro style peg bag.  

As any self respecting vintage girl, how could I have gone so long using the modern plastic bag that I think came from the front of a magazine?  I had chide myself several times in the past, but never enough to get on and do something about it, but this time I felt different, the house is getting more complete, and stepping out of my 40s/50s style kitchen I really felt the need for a nice little crochet peg bag. 

So upstairs I went to to the sewing room, opened up a box of wool and rummaged, and these are the colours I came up with.

I had no pattern in mind just thought I'd do a reasonable length of chain  and then work up both sides to form a bag, leave a slit at a reasonable height and join it off at the top when its big enough, in random stripes of colour and maybe a bit of the dark pink tatted up for decoration. So I thought I'd show you how I do a foundation chain to make it easier to crochet to down either side of it. This is something I do often when making a bag that isn't round based. I do a little more to each stitch  than a simple chain and I hope that the photos will show it well enough, but please let me know if you need more explanation. 

 Firstly complete 2 chain stitches then put the hook through the first loop, yarn around hook and pull back through first loop on hook, yarn around again and then through both loops

2 chains

hook through 1st loop

yarn pulled through 1st loop

yarn pulled through both loops

Then you put the hook through the side of the bottom of the stitch you just created and do the whole thing again.

hook through bottom of stitch

 The chain a bit longer and the hook through the bottom of the stitch.

A further stitch completed

3 SC in the last chain to enable the flow of stitches
 round to go down the other side

It then becomes very easy to crochet down the other side.

both sides completed

 

to give a bit of a base I did a 3 increase at the end and 2 increase in the stitch either side of the end.

The base starting to build upwards.

And this is how far I have got, a couple more nights should see it completed, then I will need to get the saw out to chop a wooden coat hanger down to size, hopefully next week's washing will be retro style.

see you all soon 

luv ally x