Jochet Works

This one was… a fun challenge. As with the Pokeball gift bag, my boyfriend and I were kind of invited last-minute to a birthday party for his niece. However, this time I had an idea that the birthday party was coming, because I had made sure to get everyone’s birthday’s written down the last time. So, I had started this project a couple weeks before the actual birthday.

Unfortunately, all I knew about this little girl was: Unicorns. Unicorns were her thing. So, as I often do, I googled “crochet unicorn” for some inspiration. I didn’t find anything that I really liked for her (mainly because I knew she was going to want all of the same sugary stuff that I had put in her brother’s bag, so I needed a slightly bigger bag).

So, I decided I would make my first steps into completely making my own pattern from scratch. It worked… semi-successfully.

I started with two panels for the front and the back of the bag. Both of them were vaguely horse-head-shaped. I then used top-stitching to add the face to both sides. For the strap (which is tied at the top where it would sit on the shoulder), I worked it in three pieces. I started with a basic rectangle that was long enough to wrap from one upper corner of the face panel, down, around, and back up to the other corner. I then attached it to both panels. From there, I worked the strap upwards on one side, and tapered it off to a point. I did the same on the other side and then tied the two straps together.

My boyfriend said I made it look easy because I got it done “in one Saturday.” But really, there were two or three re-starts to getting the panels right, four or five attempts at getting the faces to be even, and then much deliberation about how to do the unicorn horn.

The horn I made, stuffed with scrap yarn, and then attached to one of the panels, along with a couple crochet rose appliques next to each strap. To close the bag, I used some scrap yarn from the strap and made a chain with single crochets. This was threaded through one side and tied around the horn to give the impression of bangs.

In the end, it turned out cute, and she adored it. I personally didn’t care for how the horn turned out, and if I made it again, I would look into doing the horn differently. As I said before, I was told not too long after her party that she and her brother (Pokeball Bag) both used their bags to collect Halloween candy. I thought that was the best thing ever, personally.

Any comments, questions, concerns? Let me know!

Thanks for reading. – Jo