Little Miss Lexi is celebrating her fifth birthday and so of course, she got a special handmade present from her Aunt Donna.
This year, I made her a crocheted drawstring strawberry tote bag, and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. This bag is the perfect size to pack a pair of pajamas and maybe a stuffed animal to have a sleepover at Grammie and Pop Pop’s house. Or maybe to tote around all the treasures that 5-year-old girls collect. Either way, I think Miss Lexi will like it!
Pattern Choice
Now, I have to start by saying that there are a lot of free crochet strawberry bag patterns out there. And I read through many of them before starting this project. The project that you see here is really a cobbled together version of a strawberry tote bag. A Frankenberry! I incorporated what I felt were the best parts of several different patterns, and I’ll link those patterns and explain the whole process below.
Materials You'll Need
For this project, you’ll need a dark pink (or red) yarn for the berry, a green yarn for the strawberry cap, small bits of white and yellow yarn for flowers, and small bits of white or black yarn for the seeds. I used a size H hook for the entire project. And I used Fray Block on all the knotted ends of the seeds to make sure that they stay secure. (See directions below.)
The Strawberry
For the body of the bag (or the strawberry), I mostly followed this
step by step video crochet tutorial. The only changes I made were that I stuck to the repeat of four increase rows and one non-increase row for the main body. I worked the pattern until I had 18 stitches between increases. When it came time to decrease, I worked a few more decrease rows than specified.
The finished strawberry on my bag measures 11 ¼ inches from top to bottom and about 13 inches across the top opening when laid flat. Of course, you can make your bag any size you choose by following the same repeats in the tutorial.
The Seeds
For the seeds on the strawberry, I followed the same video tutorial instructions. However, I looped the yarn through each area three times before tying off. I made sure to tie off each seed four times (tightly). And then after cutting all loose ends, I also dabbed each knot with
Fray Block. I hope this will ensure that none of the knots will come untied and the strawberry seeds will stay put.
The Top
For the top of the strawberry, I followed this
step by step YouTube crochet tutorial. This tutorial had more of a ruffle top strawberry, which I preferred to the individual leaves that many strawberry bag patterns had. I ended up doing 5 total rows of double crochet just so that the top to the strawberry bag would look proportionate. I believe the bag that I started with was larger than the bag in this tutorial.
The Drawstring
For the drawstring, my main concern was that it might come out of the bag since there was nothing at the ends of the drawstrings in many of the strawberry bag patterns. I found this
free crochet Strawberry Pajama bag pattern that had strawberry blossoms attached to the ends of the drawstring, so that was the perfect solution! Make sure to weave your drawstring into the bag before attaching your blossoms to the ends.
To attach them, I knotted the center yellow yarn from the flower and the green yarn from the drawstring chain tightly. Then, I wove the yellow yarn into the yellow part of the flower and I used the green yarn to tack the drawstring down to the flower petal (from behind) and weave extra into the green part only. This hid the stitches so that the flowers will look good from both sides and will also be secure.
(Note: as written, the pattern only produces blossoms with 4 petals, even though 5 are shown in the photo with the pattern. If you’d prefer to have 5 petals on your blossoms, I would suggest starting with more single crochets in your ring.)
The Handle
Many of the free crochet strawberry bag patterns I found were for backpacks, and many of them had very thin handles. I really thought that regardless of whether it ended up being a backpack or a tote bag, the handle needed to be sturdy since it was ultimately going to be a gift for a five-year-old.
I really liked the way the handles on this
Out & About Backpack looked, so I used that same basic principle. Instead of a starting chain of 101, I only chained 85. And instead of 11 rows of SC, I only did 7 before folding over and trimming in the scallops. The scallops seemed to work better for me (not ruffle) when I skipped 2 stitches between them. I used pink yarn to attach each end of the handle securely to the inside top of the bag and weaved in ends.
I decided on a tote bag version which only required one handle, but if you’d like to make a backpack version for your strawberry bag, you could always make two handles and attach them to the back of the bag instead of the top.
So that’s it! A little legwork to get the look, but I think it turned out fantastic!
And here's a few photos of the birthday girl enjoying her bag:
And if you don’t have a kiddo who would appreciate a strawberry tote bag, I happen to think that this strawberry might look awfully cute in your kitchen pantry holding extra plastic grocery bags. Or even leave off the handle, fill it with fiberfill stuffing, and cinch it tight to make a cute summertime pillow. Or maybe just make one for yourself to take to the Farmers' Market this Summer.
Have fun crocheting your strawberry bag!
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