Prada Inspired Crochet Vertical Stripe Shoulder Bag Tutorial
Today’s tutorial is how to crochet this vertical stripe shoulder bag. The handles are reinforced with webbing, which is sewn thru the bag opening’s interfacing. No sewing machine needed, all power by my high cholesterol level and a sharp chenille needle.
This pattern was made famous by Prada. They made it with raffia straw yarn and they come in lovely color combinations. I substitute the straw yarn with cotton yarn because I have a box of cotton yarn. I’m trying not buy more things. Raffia seems painful to my fingers ? hmmm
Please do kindly watch the video tutorial. I was feeling ambitious and it got 30 mins long. I’ll link it below and we’ll talk more about the moss stitch.
The moss stitch is very simple to crochet. It’s just a series of single crochet and chain stitches. This makes it very fast to complete a row. Totally possible to watch Netflix and crochet at the same time. Here is a little illustration I made of this stitch :
We go row by row, changing color every 4th row . The number of chains will determine the length of the bag, as we will rotate it and use the stripes vertically. This is a very genius move because if we use the bag horizontally, the chain spaces will create holes when we fill up our bag. When it’s vertical, gravity will help pull together those spacers.
The bag pattern is a large rectangle. The number of stripes will determine the width of the bag. If you want a wider bag, just add more stripes, in even numbers. If it’s odd number, when we connect the sides, the stripes will be in the same color and it breaks the pattern.
To recap, if you want to alter the size, everything is done in even numbers. If you do the rows in even number, all the yarn ends will end up on one side of the rectangle. We do not cut the yarn when changing colors, just carry it upwards when you need it. Even number of rows = less yarn tails to weave in.
To make the project go smoothly, crochet up a sample swatch. It should be the size of a potholder to get a good estimate. Or you can cut corners, like I did, if you are doing casual crochet. My sample swatch was just 10 stitches.
I want to include this part on the video… ( I just found out I can share a timecoded video )
