Crocheted Crafter's Tote Progress Report

Colors in blocks: 

pale yellow, mint green, pale pink, pale blue, sage, 

golden yellow, coral pink, aqua, lilac, peach, blue

The Mobius strip with four rows on or twice around the whole strip and the first of 9 strips of 11 4in pastel blocks.

Some of those pastel blocks look out of square and a couple of them actually are because I used my eye instead of a ruler to decide when there were enough rows.  But most of them are right and are just stretched out by the weight of the strip as it hangs off the top of the window.  The only way to get a clean surface of the right color and lighting was to hang a blanket on the window and pin the strips to it.

I actually have about 14ins to finish the second trip around the Mobius strip and the final blue square still needs 4 or 5 rows but the concept can now be seen more clearly.

The Mobius strip was begun with an 8 foot chain and is going to be 12 to 14 inches wide and will serve as bottom, sides and shoulder strap for the tote.  The Mobius twist will be kept at the top of the should strip.

Four of the pastel squares strips will wrap around the front horizontally with 3 squares on each end wrapped around the outside of the Mobius strip to form outside pockets on the ends of the bag.

Five of the pastel squares strips will form the back, top and front flap.

Each of those pastel strips will feature a different stitch.  This first one is the 2 chain mesh which is the same stitch for the Mobius strip and it will be the bottom of the horizontal strips with its bottom edge sewn to the Mobius.  The strip above it which I've just started is straight single crochet.

To clarify, I do not make each square separate.  I start the next square directly on the one just done to work one long strip.

For the front each strip will start with the second color in the strip below it.  And for the back/flap each strip will start with the second color of the strip to its left looking at the back   The five strips sewn together will then have one end sewn to the side of the Mobius strip opposite the front panel and the sides of the back panel will be sewn to the Mobius strip four squares deep on each side.

Thus the final dimensions are approximately 20 inches long, 16 inches deep, 12 inches wide front to back.

This is designed to be big enough to hold an entire standard bed sized quilt, bedspread or afghan and the materials for working it.  This particular one is intended for a quilter and I chose the square block pattern to mimic the patchwork quilt.

I was hoping to be well into the third pastel strip if not the forth by now and five inches in width to the Mobius.  I will have to seriously step up the pace in order to finish by Christmas now.  I think I need to do some serious math to figure out just what that pace needs to be--minimum--keeping in mind the finishing touches of sewing every thing together and tucking tails and so forth.