T-shirt tote bag

I finished another t-shirt bag - this one's much larger, made with all white t-shirt yarn.  It's about 15 inches wide, 12 inches tall, and the strap drop is 9 inches.  It's the perfect size for a farmer's market bag.  I would have taken it to the Union Square market yesterday, but it wasn't quite finished.  I usually bring a couple of grocery store re-usable bags, but the straps on those tend to be narrow and cut into my shoulder when it's full.  I specifically made the straps on my t-shirt bag wide and thick, so it should be pretty comfortable even when full of tasty veggies.

Here it is lying flat:

With half a dozen ears of corn, it's still less than half full:

It's much more comfortable than those grocery store bags:

I enjoyed the entire process of making this bag: finding the t-shirts, making the yarn, and crocheting the bag.  I'm definitely planning on using these myself, and listing them on Etsy.  I've already started working on a pattern so I can list t-shirt yarn tote bag kits on Etsy, too.  That will take a little work - I've never written a pattern for use by other people, I just scrawl some notes for my own purposes when I make something new.  I'll have to make a few more, and take pictures along the way.  The straps will be the hardest part to write.

I'll need pattern testers, so if any of my few readers know how to crochet, and are interested in making their very own t-shirt yarn tote bag, let me know!  I'll send you the yarn and the pattern (once I have it worked out, probably a few weeks), and all I ask in return is that you let me know if there are any errors/confusing sections in the pattern.

Lots of new Etsy items

I just posted a bunch of new items to Etsy - nerdy baby slug hats, nerdy adult slug hats (finally finished two of them), and a crochet overlay scarf, which I'm very proud of.  I finished up the sun hat for a coworker, and have a few slug hat orders to fill.  Slowly the orders are coming in, but none from Etsy for a while.  I'm participating in the Etsy Christmas in July sale (25% off all sun hats and free shipping on most items), which will hopefully entice a few people to purchase some of my wares.  Head on over to my site and check it out:
SquirrelProductions

I just got a TON of new yarn off Ebay, none of which fits in the bins I picked up recently from Target specifically to help organize my yarn.  Fortunately they're the stackable kind, so I'll just have to pick up a couple (or five) more of them.  Thanks to the organization fiend who happens to be my boyfriend, all of my yarn (except for the new stuff) is currently nicely stacked in the bins by color.  That's already lasted for about four days!  We'll see how much longer it all stays in order...

T-shirt bag!

Here's my very first t-shirt bag:

I tried the handles a couple of different ways, but I really liked how they came out in the end.  The straps are stretchy but strong.  I'm using this bag to carry my current crochet project to and from work.  I'm also working on a much larger white t-shirt bag, but I ran out of white t-shirts.  I have a bunch of other colors, and spent quite a while cutting the shirts into strips.  Now I just have to turn the strips into yarn...  It's best to start with shirts without side seams, but I didn't find too many of those.  The ones that do have side seams have to be cut into individual strips, instead of a spiral cut all the way up the shirt.  Joining all of the strips together takes some time, and the ends show when the yarn is crocheted.  I like it, though - I think it makes the bags look more interesting.
I made this today:

Custom order nerdy baby sun hat.  It's almost impossible to tell from the picture (this is exactly why I don't take my own Etsy photos) but the outer fabric is bright yellow and the edging is light green.  I also cut out fabric to make a couple more hats - I'm going to try to attach antennae to the next one.  We'll see how that goes.

Crochet + sewing = not great

The crochet purse I was working on did not come out very well.  After many frustrating hours of trying to figure out how to put a small zipper pocket inside the purse, I gave up and left the zipper off the inner pocket.  Then I attached the lining to the outer (crochet) part of the bag, and realized after I was completely finished that the inner pocket was on the front side of the bag (the pocket should have been in the back, thus close to my body when I'm wearing the purse).  I hoped it would be OK.  It's not.  I tried putting my cellphone in the little inner pocket, but that made the front of the bag sag inwards and it was extremely awkward trying to get anything into or out of the bag.  It's also impossible to open the bag with one hand, which I need to do because for some reason I'm usually carrying things in the other hand (maybe if I had made a much BIGGER bag I wouldn't have any of these problems...).

So, I love the crochet part of the bag, the yarn is beautiful, but it's not meant to be.  It was too frustrating to try again.  Stupid zippers.

In other news, I've started making t-shirt yarn!  I love it - I already made a bag for my portable crochet project (usually take something to work on during lunch and on car rides) in blues and purples.  The yarn is pretty chunky so it works up fast, and the end result is a sturdy, stretchy, completely recycled and machine washable bag/purse.  I already started making a larger shopping bag with white yarn.  My plan is to make more and list them on Etsy, but also to make kits with a bag pattern, crochet hook, and home-made t-shirt yarn.  I'm in the process of making more yarn, but I also have to write the pattern down.  I usually work from memory, or make it up as I go along.  The bag pattern is very simply so hopefully it won't take very long to write.

I will post pictures of my t-shirt bag soon, I just have to take them first....