Recycled material bag - crochet pattern

I did say when I finished this bag that I would write up the pattern - so here it is.

No gauge or needle size instructions as this is for a recycled material bag, so these are dependent on what material you use. I used an old frogged jumper, two strands at a time because I wanted a thick pattern and a sturdy bag, and needle size 8mm.

Chain 22.

The bag is worked round and round to create a seamless pattern.

hdc = half double crochet

Stitches used: half double crochet, single chain, slip stitch

row 1: hdc in 2nd chain from hook, then in each chain stitch to end. 2 hdc in the corner end stitch, turn.

row 2; hdc in each stitch to last 2, work 2 hdc in the two end stitches, turn.

row 3: hdc in each stitch to last 2 stitches, work 2 hdc in each of the two end stitches, turn.

row 4: hdc in each stitch to last 3 stitches, work 2 hdc in each of the three end stitches, turn.

row 5: hdc in each stitch to last 3 stitches work 2 hdc in each of the three end stitches, turn.

This is the base of your bag. If you want it bigger because of your plans for the bag or because you have enough material, just continue rows 4 and 5 until you have the base size you want.

To start working the body of the bag, work the following row in the front loops only.

row 6: hdc in each stitch, work 2 hdc in the end stitch, then hdc back to the other end, work 2 hdc in the end stitch.

Work again in both loops.

row 7, 8, 9: hdc in each stitch down to end, work 2 hdc in the end stitch, work 1 hdc in each stitch back to the other end, work 2 hdc in end stitich.

Repeat the above until you get the height you want for your bag, I worked these rows three times to get a taller basket type bag.

Switch to your contrast fabric or ribbon at the side of the bag. (Unfortunately this did not work so well as I only had enough ribbon for one round, so I finished my embellishment round in the main bag fabric).

row 10: work hdc in each stitch around

row 11: work hdc in each stitch around

OR - ALTERNATIVE ROW 11 - using the main fabric of the body or your contrast fabric - ignoring the last coloured row, single chain in one loop of each stitch of the main body fabric as it joins to the embellishment fabric. (This creates the row that stands slightly proud of the main bag body as per my bag in the photo).

Switch back to your main bag fabric and work through both loops of each stitch again.

row 12, 13, 14, 15: hdc in each stitch around for these 4 rounds and end at the side of the bag.

Optional variation if you have enough contrast fabric. Switch to contrast fabric for this one row, starting on the same bag side as the previous contrast rounds.

row 16: hdc in each stitch of this round.

Switch back to main material.

row 17: hdc in each stitch of this round.

row 18: starting at the side of the bag, hdc in each of the next 7 stitches, chain 20 for the handles (you can chain slightly longer if your bag is small and light, but this is not designed to be an over the shoulder style of bag).
Join the handle chain back into the bag with a single chain, leaving approximately 14 stitches unworked in the centre of the bag - this is an approximate number, fold your bag opening in half at the sides and simply ensure that you have your handle centrally positioned.
Work hdc into the remaining 7 stitches of that side of the bag.

row 19: hdc around the other side of the bag for 7 stitches, chain 20 and join with a single stitch into bag, leaving approx 14 stitches unworked under the handle. hdc for the remaining 6 stitches. Fold your bag opening and check that handles are aligned with each other and centrally positioned for the bag.

row 20: hdc in each stitch of the bag around to the handle, then work 2 hdc in the stitch at the base of the handle, and hdc in each stitch around the handle until you reach the end stitch to work 2 hdc again, hdc in each stitch round to the second handle, work 2 hdc into the stitch at the base, hdc in each stitch of the handle, then work 2 hdc into the base stitch, work 1 hdc into each stitch back to the side of the bag.

For an alternative finish - using contrast fabric or leather strips.

row 21: single chain, slip stitch in each stitch of the round to create a smooth bound edge. I would really have liked to do this even with the main material of the bag body, but I just did not have enough frogged jumper left.

Fasten off and weave ends under on the inside of the bag.

This is another easy but rewarding project, quite quick to do and one that can be done on the sofa watching TV, as there is not much counting or pattern following required. Plus you can use pretty much any fabric or yarn you have so it would be a good catch all project for tidying up your left over scrap fabrics. I am saving my left over hat and shawl yarns ready to make the next bag - which is going to end up a mish mash of colours and textures.

Couple of days to catch up on here...

... and they centre around the wedding yesterday.

First I had to finish making the gift - which now that it has been given can be revealed as a photo album assembled by me from some handmade paper and cardboard.

Forgot the photo but here are the instructions:

In addition having once again run out of all purpose cards had to make one at the last minute.

Then having had the fashion police dictate my outfit on the day, as we were the witnesses I though it might be appropriate to jazz up my dress with a matching hair fascinator.  Cue a last minute rummage through the boxes of assorted 'stuff' to find some feathers, then some beads then a hair clip to attach them too.

I am pleased with the result though.

Some purple quills, stuck down to a fluffy purple feather horizontally at the base, the beads strung onto a short bit of wire with a dab of glue to hold them in place, then the ends wedged into some polysterene from some packaging waste, and a snip of the purple fluffy feather added at the base to hide the white polysterence, then the quills hot glue gunned to a hair clip and the bead wires added on top.


Right - just 337 photos to sort through now to get a nice commemorative album together, in the meantime, here is a witty ditty...


I'm off to stuff tomatoes
If I wasn't stuffing 'matoes
Where would I be -
Well, I'd be stuffing marrows, see?




Or to be more accurate - patty pan squashes - no need to guess what's for dinner tonight?


I stuffed my tomatoes and the patty pan with the same mix:-

about 250g of pork mince,
a tablespoon of garlic,
couple of inches of chorizio sausage,
handful of fresh basil leaves,
ground black pepper
and the innards of  5 large tomatoes scooped out with a spoon.

Whizz everything up in a food processor or chop finely and stir well together in a bowl.

I sliced my patty pans thinly having scooped out the seeds, lay the empty tomatoes on top, fill with the mix and cover with the top of the tomatoes, then I poured in 1.5 litres of chicken stock to 2 patty pan squashes and threw it in the gas oven for 45 minutes on gas mark 6.

The stuffed patty pan was sat in 500ml of chicken stock on a bed of patty pan squash slices and cooked at 180°C for 1 hour.

Weekend catch up - card making and a quick supper

I went to write a couple of birthday cards on Saturday and discovered that my stocks are severely depleted.

Card making was the first craft thing that I got into, and still enjoy, but you only need so many at a time.  But with only a couple of all occasion cards and a couple of birthday cards left it was time to get gluestick to the card and make some more.

I usually get caught in a theme and make a batch of about 5 or 6 cards at a go from the theme and currently I am well and truly hooked on Matroyshka dolls.

I had a quick look around the web for a suitable template but did not find anything that would suit my card sizes (15 x 10cm and 17 x 14 cm) so decided to make my own.  Out comes the trusty squared paper (I may have mentioned before that squared paper is one of my little pleasures in life), got the school geometry set out and made my own template.

I know I am not showing you the finished products but you may be receiving one so I don't want to spoil the surprise.

The main body is made from magazine pages, scrounged wrapping papers, hand decorated tissue papers and wall paper, then the head scarf is cut out as a separate piece, the face is some fleshy pink paper with the hair line and face hand drawn on.

I am going to see if I can get this as a pdf file for people to download and use from here.

Anyway, today's (Sunday's) car booting was not a great haul, but the drinkies and lunch with friends this afternoon was a great success, leaving me with little time for a project - so here is a great tasty quick and easy supper.


Baked Salmon and Garden Fresh Peas.



1 x salmon steak per peson
1 x cup fresh garden peas per person
1 teaspoon of butter per salmon steak
Freshly ground black pepper and sea salt to season
1 lemon cut into thin slices

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Take a shallow oven dish and put the peas in the bottom
Place a knob of butter on the peas, and balance the steak on top
Cover with a couple of slices of lemon
Season, then bake covered in the oven for 30 minutes.
Purists may say that is too long for salmon but I like mine cooked through, bake yours for less time if you prefer but the lemon and butter will stop it from drying out, and covering will keep the peas steam cooking without them becoming mushy.
If you like your peas mushy, boil them for a couple of minutes before baking or use frozen peas as these will be softer than fresh garden peas regardless of cooking times.

Day 8 chicken and pasta in creamy thyme sauce and some elderflower champagne

With the elderflowers finally in bloom, I got my champagne laid up.

The recipe I use is very simple:

Fill the bottom of a shallow bowl with elderflower heads (at least 20), try to have as few stalks as possible as they are bitter.

Cover in a thick layer of sugar, then pour over a litre of boiling water then a litre of cold water.

Add 50g of citric acid and juice and zest of one lemon or the juice and zest of 4 lemons if not using citric acid. Once again I have my lovely North African supermarket to thank for the citric acid - a complete fluke find on the shelf in there one day last year so I grabbed a couple of packets as it is getting harder and harder to get hold of.

Cover the bowl and place in a warm dark spot for 24 hours.

Sieve the liquid and pour off into screw topped bottles, either glass or plastic bottles designed for fizzy drinks, and leave to stand for another 14 days in a warm dark place, until the wine settles and clears. I like to squeeze every last drop from the flower heads, and if the liquid doesn't have that slightly sticky feel to it, I add another tablespoon of sugar to the bottle it is being decanted into.

There is no yeast required as the flower heads provide enough yeast to set the process off.

If you just want cordial, then once bottled, put in the fridge to stop any fermentation continuing.

I like to make up some elderflower ice cubes, and then you can just pop one of those into a glass of white wine, top with some lemonade or fizzy water for a summery spritzer, or add a dash of lemon vodka for a more potent cocktail.

In total 6 litres of champagne bottled up, and another 2 tubs of elderflowers settling for some cordial.


Day 8 - Chicken and Pasta in a Creamy Thyme sauce

Cook some pasta twirls or shells or tubes, drain, rinse with cold water and leave to one side, the cold helps to set the pasta so that it does not go mushy before you come to use it.

Gently fry a couple of chicken breasts in garlic oil, add 500ml of chicken stock, and a veg of your choice, I used green beans from the freezer but anything that you have to hand will do, carrots, peas, broccoli are all good for this.

Once the veg is tender, add the leaves from several sprigs of fresh thyme, as well as 150ml of cream.  I like to use real cream as it is delicate enough for the thyme, creme fraiche has too much of a flavour of its own for me and swamps the thyme.

Cook gently for a couple of minutes, then add the pasta back into the pan.  Stir the sauce through the pasta and there you go.  Another larder recipe.

Only another 2 to go - I am running out of fresh veg and dairy staples now though, may need to go and give the larder a good staring at for inspiration tomorrow.

Day 5 - Open Lattice Mediterranean Tart

Been another busy busy day here, found out today as well that one of my contracts has been extended - which in theory is great, but in reality I was looking forward to reclaiming some of my afternoons for myself and the garden, or my studio,which is calling and calling me.

Still at least this is the weekend, and I can relax and have a glass of wine or two - except of course then my teen tells me she is off out on Saturday night and I have to drive around town as a taxi fetching her home!  No rest for the wicked or so they say.


So onto tonight's recipe

Open Lattice Mediterranean Tart

The base is a (slightly) out of date pre-rolled flaky pastry sheet that I found in the back of the fridge.

( I don't even recall why I bought it, perhaps to make some buffet sausage rolls for a dinner party, or some spicy pastries, anyway there it was, and not even green and furry so by my standards perfectly edible.)

I trimmed it to fit the oven tray, then piled on mozzarella cheese, a thinly sliced red onion, some red pepper,  some chorizo sausage, then some more mozzarella, sprinkled a bit of garlic salt on top, black pepper and some dried basil, then laid over the left over pastry sheet cut into strips to create the lattice.

Once cooked in the gas oven at number 6 for 20 minutes, I drizzled a bit of garlic and chili olive oil over to serve.

What would have been extra nice to finish it off with would have been some tomatoes, but as there are none left in the larder, under the self-imposed rules I was not going to go out and buy any.

Once we had eaten the tart I remembered that I still had some frozen cherry tomato slices in the freezer for just such an occasion - typical to remember it too late, but maybe now I will remember to use them on something else.

Easy BBQ salads, Chinese 5 spice mix and a Chinese Marinade

With Saturday another lovely sunny day before the storm due on Sunday afternoon, we had another impromptu BBQ with friends.

After a morning spent weeding and pottering around the garden it seemed a really good idea to kick back and relax with a cocktail and plenty of food.

I whipped up a couple of salads - really easy and quick.

Pasta salad with french beans

Cook up a generous pile of pasta (about 500g) - for this sort of cold salad I just use the cheap twirl pasta and boil for 2 minutes less than the recommended time, for the last couple of minutes, turn off the heat and leave the pasta in the hot water to continue cooking, test to make sure the pasta is still firm then drain and immediately pour over some cold water to stop the cooking process. You want the pasta to be firm and not soggy.
Cook 250g of french beans (or cheat by using a tin!), drain and leave to cool, then mix with the cooled pasta
In the meantime, take 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise, add a tablespoon of wholegrain mustard, stir together then stir through the pasta and beans, then grind over some sea salt to season.

Whole grain wheat with sweetcorn

I buy this here in France in the dried pulses aisle along side rice and cous-cous, just boil up for 10 minutes, then drain and rinse with cold water, leave to cool. Add a tin of sweetcorn, stir in a tablespoon of olive oil and season with salt and pepper.


My pork I decided to marinade in a Chinese flavour for a change.
Chinese marinade:

2 tablespoons of honey
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of sherry (or sweet wine, or port, or some red wine with a pinch of sugar - whatever you have to hand)
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil - I normally use sunflower as that is what is normally in the pantry as a back-up, don't use olive oil, the flavour mix is not right
1 tablespoon Chinese 5 spice mix
1 generous pinch of salt

Massage well into the meat, leave in the mix for at least two hours in the fridge before cooking., the oil will help it cook on the BBQ without sticking to the grills.


Chinese 5 spice

As this mix is not readily available here in France I make my own in large batches to use when I need it.

My recipe is:

2 teaspoons of black peppercorns
4 cloves
8 star anise
1 stick of cinnamon
2 teaspoons of fennel seeds

Either grind in a mortar or whizz up in a blender - I have a mini blender for this sort of thing but sometimes it can leave the bits too big and not grind them down into a fine powder so normally I whizz it then grind in the mortar to just make sure I get a fine powder.




Lovely evening sat outside in the garden watching big beetles flying into the studio light.

New Pantry and a quick and easy fish recipe

First cucumber seedlings coming through.


Brendan has finished my pantry so I can move all that remains of my food stocks back inside from the barn - the mice were having a field day in there.

Yesterday I recovered the old shelves with a second hand vinyl tablecloth so they now have lovely and cheery yellow wipe down surfaces - very reminiscent of the 50's interior design styles.

Then today it was all hands on deck moving crates of preserves, flour, pasta and rice, not to mention all the bottle and bottles of alcohol back indoors.

Feeling utterly wiped out at the moment, and a bit blue, even though the sun is out and it has been lovely and warm for a few days.

I am not sure what I need to lift my mood (apart from some good news) so I am taking tomorrow's project to pamper myself a bit. After work I am going to meet a friend, I will change my clothes so I look a bit smarter and put some make-up on, maybe that will help.

In the meantime - after lugging jars and jars of my homemade chutneys and jams and those umpteen bottles of elderberry vodka back into the pantry I am going to make a quick and easy creamy fish dinner with some of last year's harvest of spuds and this years new growth of parsley, accompanied by a vodka cocktail.

Cocktail:

1 generous shot of elderberry vodka
1 generous measure of blackberry syrup
Half a highball glass of lemonade
Pour over frozen lemon slices and elderflower syrup ice-cubes

Creamy fishy dinner:

Boil some spuds and set aside in an oven dish to keep warm - I do this because I like my spuds quite dry when making a delicate flavoured sauce, and I can put them in the Rayburn oven leaving me the hot plate free to make my fish sauce

take 3 fillets of a boneless white fish
add some french beans
and simmer gently in half a litre of vegetable stock, until reduced to about half the volume

when beans are tender and liquid has reduced add a generous amount of cream and stir through while it warms
finish with a couple of grinds of black pepper and a big handful of fresh parsley - mine is now just big enough to harvest straight from the garden


As a cheer me up tonight I intend to eat on my lap in front of the TV, cheering on Daphne in Eggheads!