Mostly cotton artisan market bag

My fiber journey began with crochet, but I haven't "hooked" much in recent years. My granddaughter is interested in learning to crochet, which rekindled my interest. Then a fiber friend crocheted one of these bags, which pointed me in this direction.

Pattern: Artisan Market Baskets, from Crochet Southwest Spirit, by Susan E. Kennedy
Yarn: A Good Yarn (hand painted fingering yarn by Mary Ann Habeeb, superwash wool and nylon); Maysville 8/4 Cotton Carpet Warp in 'Tulip' and 'Yellow'; Lion Brand Kitchen Cotton in 'Blue Ice', 'Tropic Breeze, and 'Grape'; Lion Brand Lion Cotton Solid in 'Off White'; Omega Sinfonia in 'Matizado Azules'; Pisgah Peaches & Creme Ombres in 'Spring Meadows'
Hook: L (8.00mm)
Modifications: Handle

The pattern calls for seven(!) yarns to be held together. I have a LOT of odds and ends of yarn from various projects, so this seemed like a good way to use some of them up. To start, I pulled both ends from the cake of A Good Yarn (blue and brown), added the 'Blue Ice' Kitchen Cotton, the Lion Cotton, the Sinfonia (various shades of blue), and the two colors of cotton carpet warp. That made a nice bulky yarn. When I ran out of the 'Blue Ice', I switched to 'Tropic Breeze', and when that ran out, to 'Grape'. Similarly, when the Lion Cotton ran out, I switched to the Peaches & Creme.

A fair amount of effort goes into yarn wrangling, so I had to sit at the dining room table to work instead of curling up on the couch. One problem I had with all that yarn was sometimes one of the fingering yarns escaped. When I noticed it, I backed up to fix it, but I missed several of these loops. Lesson learned. The other problem I had was crocheting makes my hands hurt!

The pattern called for a leather (or leather-like) strap handle, but I went with something I found on a YouTube video. One simply skips 8 stitches, making 8 chain stitches in the process, on either side of the bag. On the next round, crochet 10 single crochet stitches in the loop created by the chain stitches.

The bag is a bit floppier than I expected. Since it consists of all cotton and sock yarn, it is machine washable (theoretically). I wouldn't try to carry a watermelon in it, but it would have worked fine for the baklava I purchased at a recent fair.

At that fair, I chatted up a woman who was selling crocheted boxes. They were much stiffer. Her secret was to crochet around a rope, like clothesline or mop yarn, and to use wool, which locks together better than cotton. I may have to try that someday.