Funky sheep crochet/painted/applique tote bag (part 1)

Many grocery stores now offer incentives for you to bring your own bags, or have even stopped giving out bags altogether. But face it, most of the canvas bags out there are just plain boring! This week I have a couple of projects for re-usable grocery bags that will really stand out from the crowd!

Today and Wednesday, I’ll be describing how to make this cute sheep bag – which would make a great knitting project bag if you can’t bear to use it for groceries!

For this project you’ll be using crochet, applique, and fabric painting, and a small amount of embroidery.

You will need:

• Cotton or canvas grocery bag – mine was 70c from Muji
• Fabric paints – blue and white, and brush
• Fuzzy yarn and crochet hook in size recommended for yarn
• felt – green and dark brown
• thread to match felt, and needle
• pale pink embroidery floss
• 4 small white pony beads and 4 black seed beads
• scissors

First off, lets paint in the sky. Start at the top with blue fabric paint straight from the tube. As you work down, keep adding water to your paint so you get a nice graduated effect. Add a couple of clouds in white.

While that dries, lets crochet the sheep bodies (if you don’t know how to crochet, you could cut 2 ovals from fleece or fun-fur fabric).

Chain 4, turn, and work 2 single crochet into the second chain stitch from the hook. Single crochet across to the last stitch in the chain, and work 3 sc into that chain. From here on, you’ll be going round and round rather than back-and-forth. Rotate your work so the original chain points upward. Single crochet across the chain, including into the chain stitch where you worked 2sc at the start. Join round with a slipstitch.

Next round, work 2 sc into each of the next 2 stitches. Single crochet around til you reach the 3 stitches at the other end, and work 2 sc into those 3 stitches. Single crochet around and finish the round with 2 sc into the last stitch, and join with a slipstitch.

Keep working rounds in this way – increasing by 3 stitches at each end of the oval – until you think your oval is the right size.

Now to cut out the pieces. Cut your green felt diagonally in half, then round one corner of each triangle so it looks like a rolling hill.

From the brown felt, cut 8 long thin rectangles for the legs – you needn’t be too precise about getting them perfectly square, in fact they look cuter if they widen slightly toward the bottom.

Cut 2 triangles for the faces, and round all 3 corners. Cut 4 elongated teardrop shapes for the ears.

OK, now you have all your bits – on Wednesday we’ll put them all together!

You may also like:

1. Funky sheep tote bag, part 2
2. Make a wire crochet ring
3. Crochet basics – Sign seeker belt