[CR]Needleworkmonday | Granny Squares

# Needleworkmonday | Granny Squares bag finally done!

I started this project two months ago. I promised I would not procrastinate with this one but sometimes life has a different plan. It turned out to still take two months to complete. I'm glad though that I took my time in doing this as the final product was just as I pictured it!

Compared to my bohemian bag project, the granny squares bag had more processes in the creation. The first process is the making of the squares itself. This process was the most tedious of them all.

Making the squares

As I mentioned when I first introduced thisproject some two months ago, I used this guide in making the squares. I pretty much followed every step on that guide except for the number of chains on the transition of each sides of the square. For some reason my squares gets a deformed square when I follow the number of chains in the instruction. So before I lose all my patience, I went ahead and tried to work around it.

I ended up making 34 squares for the entire bag.

Connecting the squares

The next step is connecting the squares together. This part was really exciting because this is where you get to see the bag get its form. I'm not really sure how the process was called or if there's a stitch name for what I did. But I just went ahead and connected the square from corner to corner. I picked two squares, then made the wrong sides face each other. To tie the corners together, I just made a slip stitch through the spaces on the corners of each squares.

From there, I went ahead and continued slip sticthes on each stitches all the way down to the next corner space. I first made 7 sets of four squares for the base and the front and back of the bag. Then I made 2 sets of three squares stitched together for the sides.

I then went ahead and stitched all the sets together forming the bag.

Cleaning up the ends

This bag is composed of 34 squares. Which means it has two end sticthes for each square. This is one of those repetitive steps that I don't really like. I think this is where I had to stop most of the time. Aside from the square making part, of course.

Making the bag handles

I rarely use shoulder bags so I don't really know how the bag handles for this kind of bag should work. But I pretty much know they should not be too long otherwise, I should've gone for a sling bag instead. And they shouldn't be too short it might as well have been a clutch bag.

I double yarned the handles to make them more sturdy. This may be the easiest part of the job as this only required 50 rounds of double crochets with 7 stitches for each round. I made two handles.

Attaching the handle to the bag

I originally wanted to just use my sewing machine in stitching the handle into the bag. But I ended up hand stitching the handle into it. I used back stitches for this. It looks machine stitched in front but looks like an embroidery stitch at the back. It is also strong enough to handle the weight that'll be put to the bag.

Reinforcing the base

I did not want the base to cave once I put items into the bag. So I placed three layers of cardboard glued in place at the bottom of the bag. I usually put our bed foams out in the sun on a monthly basis, I took this time to also have my glued cardboard dry up in the sun quickly.

And there it goes. Another two-month long project done. It was quite a journey for me. A lot has happened for the last two months and this bag sort of became a shock absorber and a way to take my mind off things when things get a little too complicated or too much to handle.

It's already done. Now, I am ready for my next adventure. I wonder what it could be this time.