Crocheted Crochet bag

I spotted this photo a while ago, and realised that I could do something similar with the granny squares I made earlier on in the year (they'd been sitting in a pile in my crafting cupboard which seemed wasteful). As my blanket got larger, the carrier bag I was storing it in got tattier and tattier, and I ended up using a black tote bag which didn't look very nice. So, I thought I'd see what I could make up.

I'm not a big fan of sewing either, so I thought I'd follow these instructions and crochet the squares together. This worked really well, the instructions were easy to follow, and it didn't take too long. The finished bag is 18 granny squares in size, with a granny circle for the base. 

The circle for the base I improvised, as I was away from the internet, and the end result wouldn't have been good as anything that needed to be flat - I got my increasing stitches maths all wrong - but as the base of a bag it works fine, even though it ended up being a bit big. What I should have done is counted up the number of stitches I needed based on the size of the granny squares. What I did is just keep on going till it looked like it'd fit - which ended up being way too big, and needed me to do three base stitches to every two granny square stitches to get it to attach. Still, it's all learning, and that's what it's all about right?

I decided that I didn't want a handle on it, but that I'd just do a drawstring with some ribbon so yesterday went and sourced some cream and grey ribbon which does the job nicely. Due to the explosion of colours in the squares (I was trying out lots of different yarns to get an idea as to which would work well for crocheting and which for weaving) trying to work out what colour ribbon to buy was a bit of a challenge, so I decided to go for something muted but with a little bit of character and it seems to look ok.

So here it is, my crocheted crochet bag :

It could be neater, and if I were to do another one I'd do it with less squares I think - it's more swag bag than bag - but it holds my yarn mountain and will do the job for storing blanket sized projects and is a useful thing to do with the pile of granny squares - only 2 are left and I don't feel bad about them sitting around unused.

Next crochet project: a stripy blanket which can happily be stored in the crocheted crochet bag whilst it progresses - it's currently 2 rows high so has quite a way to go yet!