Bavarian Crochet Handbag

Greetings from sunny California.  I hope that each of you have had a fun, productive week.  It's been busy around here.  My husband and I recently discovered the community center.  It's a lovely facility and the grounds are like a beautiful park.  I've been going there to exercise a couple of times a week and each Wednesday there's a knitting/crocheting group that meets there. The knitting/crocheting group creates beautiful handmade items and donates them to charity.  There are so many creative ladies in the group and each time I attend, I come home with new ideas.

Speaking of new ideas, a couple of week ago, I was watching a PBS knitting/crochet show and I saw this crochet pattern called Bavarian Crochet.  So, I googled "Bavarian crochet" and came up with a book that I could order.  I found the book online and ordered it.

I guess you could say I'm thrifty because I normally don't buy any patterns.  I was excited for the arrival of the book but when it came, needless to say, I was quite disappointed.  I was expecting to find a written tutorial on how the Bavarian  crochet stitch is made.  This was not the case.  You have to put together different rows of stitches to make the pattern stitch.

Basically here is how the stitch is made:

1.  With color A, Make a number or chain stitches (dependent upon how many "shells" you want)
2.  sc in each chain across (I made a sc bottom  approximately 4" x 10"for the handbag I made)
3.  The foundation shell is as follows:  sc in first sc, *sk next 3 sc, SHELL in next sc, sk next 3 sc, sc in next sc, repeat from * ending sc in last sc.
4.  Join color B with sc in ch-1 sp of any shell, ch 5, 8-bptr dec, ch 5, [sc in ch-1 sp of next shell, ch 5, 8 bptr dec, ch 5] repeat according to how many shells you have made, join in first sc
5.  ch 1, sc in same sc as beg ch-1, shell in top of next 8 bptr dec [sc in nect sc, shell in top of next 8 bptr dec] repeat according to how many shells you have made, join in first sc

To make the pattern, with one color repeat row 4 and 5, change color and repeat for 4 and 5, etc.

Here are the stitch abbreviations:
SHELL:
4 tr, ch 1, 4 tr (in stitch indicated)

8 bptr dec = 8 back post treble descrease :
HOLDING back last lp of each st on hook,  y/o twice, insert hook from right to left around post of stitch of previous row, pull through st, [yo, pull through 2 lps] 2 times. Repeat this around each of the next 4 sts, sk sc between shells and working on next shell, y/o twice, insert hook from right to left around post of sts of next 4 sts, yo and draw through all loops (you should have 9 loops) on hook.

This is the bottom of my handbag showing the single crochet foundation.  After I completed the bottom of the bag, I began the Bavarian crochet stitch, crocheting in the round so that there wouldn't be any seams.

I do suggest that you  find tutorials online for this stitch.  But for me, I am from the old school and need to see the pattern written on paper to get it into my head!!  I know there are some great tutorials online but they go so fast, that I usually can't understand them........

There was a pattern for a bag listed in the book above, but the dimensions of it were very small.  So, I took the stitch pattern listed above and made my own bag, crocheting in the round.  At the top of the bag, I did a single crochet stitch, decreasing equally as I went, so that the bag would be smaller at the top.

 You can see the top border in single crochet.  After I completed crocheting the bag, I double lined the bag.   Since the stitch pattern is very open, I didn't want lining seams to show from the outside.  So, I took two pieces of fabric, sewed each into a lining and put the two linings together. (note:  one lining was smaller than the other so that it would fit inside the first one)

Here's a link to a great website I found on how to make a lining to fit your bag.  I bought some plastic reinforcement and placed in the bottom of the first lining so that the bottom of the bag has a fixed structure.  I bought the bamboo handles at my local craft store and single crocheted the tabs to fit over the bamboo handles.

It was a fun project to complete although I didn't enjoy making the lining.  You can create so many projects using the Bavarian crochet stitch.  I've seen some lovely baby blankets in gorgeous colors using this stitch.  I might add, that the yarn I used for this project is from  planet penny cotton club .

That's about all I have for this post.  Don't forget to hop over to  Handmade Harbour and check out some more creative ideas.  Until next time, I wish each of you a wonderful week ahead!