Another Quick Catch-up

Just a quick word or two to catch up. I've arrived in Perth (Western Australia) and am settling in with my daughter Lou and her fiance Ben. I'm still going through hell with the events of the past year...I am being continually asked to explain my situation over and over to a variety of case managers and professionals...it is getting extremely tiring and I keep losing faith in myself. I will keep on though and just hope that the system acknowledges what I have experienced and the effect it has had on me and my family. In short, if you break a leg at work you have x-rays and a cast to prove it. If you break your brain (stress, psychological injury) good luck proving it!

I haven't done very much of late, as I've been busy with the business of moving. The house was meant to be finally settled and sold 3 days ago, but has been held up for whatever reason...just as well I rang the solicitors to find out what the progress was or I would never have known! So, to maintain some semblance of sanity, I've crocheted another camo bag, this time with a front flap and a back pocket. I've made quite a few of these, from BigW Carnival Camo yarn, which is perfect for this type of project. It is generally quite firm and in my opinion has the best colour blend of any local yarns. As I remember, here is what I did -

Disclaimer - I am RUBBISH at writing instructions! I am working on this and will start putting in photos to accompany patterns....I've written many processes and test scripts so you would think that this would be easy!

200g BigW Carnival yarn (this size bag used pretty much all of the 2 balls, so you might like to buy 3 to cater for bigger sized bags)
4.00m hook
2 large buttons or toggles

Bag
Make 55 chain.
DC (SC if you are in the US) until the piece is long enough to form a bag shape with the desired flap length. Fasten off.

Strap
Make 15 chain. This makes a 7cm wide strap. You can adjust to your desired width.
DC until the piece is the desired length. To measure, fold the bag into shape, then lay the strap along the first side, drape around to the second side and make a visual judgement on length. The strap will stretch once the bag is used and weight is put in it.

To make up the bag -

Fold the bag into the correct shape.
Pin strap along first side, making sure the strap can drape around to the other side. In other words, don't get half way up then realise you have started with the wrong end of the strap!
With right side facing, DC bag and strap together.
When strap is attached, run a line of DC around the front flap of the bag. I used a 4.5mm hook for this to minimise curling of the flap corners. My flap still curled a little, so I then sewed a toggle button to each corner, then made a loop buttonhole on the body of the bag. To do this -

Take 3 strands of yarn, tie a knot at one end, plait about 3cms, tie another knot.
Feed the ends through the bag and sew ends in firmly. If you are lining the bag, you can just tie the ends together and clip off the excess.