Here is my newest crochet pattern: a roomy carryall raffia bag. It would make a fabulous accessory to a colourful summer outfit – but it’s big and strong enough to carry all your groceries, too.
I made the carryall from soft yet strong raffia yarn, the base has a leather lining to make it even more sturdy and durable.
Raffia yarn is one of my favourite materials to work with. It’s basically a paper yarn made from a sustainable organic resource, a species of palm, which grows in abundance in Madagascar.
It grows remarkable leaves, in fact the longest in the plant kingdom; up to 25 m (82.38 ft) long and 3 m (9.84 ft) wide.
I used raffia yarn from the Italian brand Adriafil. Although there are a range of colours available I couldn’t find the exact ones I wanted, so I dyed some myself like the dark red, turquoise and green.
Dyeing raffia yarn is easy as it absorbs colour really well, you can use fabric dyes, acid dyes or procion mx dyes, I’ve tried them all and they all work.
The carryall raffia crochet pattern is suitable for an intermediate beginner, stitches you need to be familiar with are single crochet, double crochet and half double crochet. The pattern is written in standard American/U.S. English terms.
To make the carryall you’ll need about 250 g yarn, a 5mm crochet hook and leather handles.
I stitched a piece of veg tan leather onto the base of the bag for extra sturdiness. This is optional and would need some extra tools like an utility knife and a metal ruler, revolving punch pliers to punch stitching holes into the leather and waxed linen thread to sew the leather to the crocheted base.
The bag is 38cm (15in) wide, 34cm (13.4in) high and 9cm (3.5in) deep.
$ 4.50
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