Not Your Ordinary Market Bag

This is the pattern that kicked off the ongoing saga of market bag-making.

It’s a free pattern on Ravelry, and requires only very basic crochet skills: chaining and single crochet. I am not good at counting my chains, as it turns out, so I got pretty tired of the pattern pretty quickly, but it’s the kind of pattern I would do (probably in a smaller scope and with larger yarn) with my young nieces. It works up quickly because so much of it is gaps!

More than the specific pattern, I like the concept: create a square mesh, gather the edges, and give it handles. It’s a practical approach for a bag that doesn’t stretch weirdly, and using a fixed, non-stretchy core for the handles is also a winning idea that I’ve applied many times since.

Also, the filet heart is just cute.