Water Bottle Easy Carry! AKA Buckfast Buddy: Festival time!

 

     Here's a quick but useful project I threw together out of necessity: A water bottle with a cross-chest strap.  I made a few of these to bring to a festival recently: who wants to be carrying a bag around all day?

What you need: 

Wool / string.

Any size crochet hook.  Can also be done without a hook if you have nimble fingers.

A water bottle.  Preferably one with a sports cap for maximum efficiency! 

 To allow for variations in the size and shape of water bottles I can only give general instructions.
You will be using the bottle as a guide and starting at the base of the bottle.
(Number of chain stitches is approximate: Increase and decrease when necessary)

To Begin Make 8 chain, join with sl-st to make a ring.
Round 1 dc (X) in first chain of ring, *ch 6, dc in ring, 3 times*, ch 6, sl-st in dc.

Round 2 sl st 3, *ch 6, dc in loop of previous round, 3 times*, ch 6, sl-st in dc.
Round 3 Same as Round 2.
Continue working rounds in this way until you have decreased towards the neck of the bottle.
Finish by chaining the loops together, tight around the bottle eg:
Finish *ch 2, dc in loop* 4 times.

To crochet the strap simply make a chain from where your thread is to the base of the bottle: Gauge it so that the bottle will hang comfortably at waist height.  Measuring this is best done with a full bottle as the chain will stretch with the weight.

Ch 200 approx.
sl-st to the ring at bottom of bottle.
dc along the chain to strengthen and fasten off.
Add tassles and liquid at your own discretion.

    

Bright & Light Crochet Tank Top

        I found a pretty crochet and mesh top in a charity shop many moons ago and it's still one of my favourites, bobbles and all.  For this project I decided to try to recreate the top, with a few exceptions: Bright colours and no sleeves.  I decided to try my hand at an Irish Lace style motif for the back piece.  Having no pattern, I bought the finest crochet thread i could find and dived in.

Purple flower motif, orange mesh & chiffon.

     Shopping for crochet thread locally left little choice of colour beyond pastels, so I took the only bight colours available.  Luckily I realised I had an old blouse in similar material to what my original top was made of.  Even better it matched my crochet thread!  In the photo you can see the flower motif I made; a basic leaf motif with free-form stem.  Once finished I wet it under a tap, pinned it to a board and ironed it flat (with a towel on top of the motif to protect it from the heat).

Using the original top as a guide.

     I also made a few small flower motifs to include in the crochet insert in the front of the top.  I worked the mesh background around the motifs, in the style of traditional Irish lace. I wasn't masochistic enough to work the back piece like this.  Instead i crocheted the mesh and later sewed on the flower motif.  If I was going to use motifs in over 50% of the back piece it would make more sense to work the mesh around them.

Flower motif back piece.

     Below is the finished project.  I had expected chiffon to be difficult to work with: Slippery, fraying and stretchy., but I couldn't resist using it because the colours matched my thread so well.  If I was to do this again I'm sure I could resist!  Due to the chiffon's stretchy nature I accidentally cut the upper bodice piece too small.

     A little tip for working with fine crochet thread: When working long rows I find my left hand (feeding the thread) can cramp very easily due to the lack of bulk to grip.  In order to reduce the risk of the dreaded RSS, and take the pain out of delicate work, I whipped up one of these things...

     Don't ask me what I call it.. but it's great!  The bulk of the wool makes it easier to comfortably grasp the fine thread.  You could use a glove, but if you're like me you would prefer to cut some of the fingers off, leaving only the fingers you use to keep tension.
 

DIY Pin-cushion with pin storage

     I'm making a dress using newspaper print fabric.  Sewing by hand for lack of a machine I of course got distracted and found another project to take a break.  In fairness making a pincushion would give me a practical advantage while sewing the dress!

     Heating a penknife over a candle I cut/melted a large hole in the plastic lid of an empty face cream jar.  I cut a circle of fabric around twice as large as the lid.  I had no stuffing so used a ball of fluffy wool, putting it in the center of the fabric circle and pushing through the hole in the lid.  I cut a round circle of cardboard and wedged it into the lid to keep the wool in.  I glued the excess cloth to the cardboard using PVA glue.

...then I got back to sewing my dress.