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10 Years of Blogging

Cindy6 Comments

January 24 marks my 10th year of blogging and crafting here at My Recycled Bags. When I started this blog back in 2007, I had just began crocheting with recycled plastic bags. Crafting with plastic bags which later was called plarn has because a very well known recycled craft.

My first post on January 24, 2007 started out by telling the history behind my crafting with recycled plastic bags. It featured a photo of my brown recycled handbag purse. For years now I have used this image as my avatar and it is what many people recognize as the signature image of my identity on the Internet.

I have crocheted and crafted hundreds of recycled projects over the years. I have created and shared over 100 free crochet and craft patterns on this blog. You can find all my free patterns here

Cloth Fabric Covered Bookcover

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This is my how-to for making a bookcover using cloth fabric. I had this nice promotional journal that I wanted to cover and give to my granddaughter. So I purchased some fabric in her favorite color and set out to make a cloth covered bookcover.

A few tips to share as I did this crafting project:

    Go slow and measure your fabric several times to make sure it is cut even for each side and edges. Fold fabric over and see how it lays before applying glue. Glue in sections and add extra glue to secure fabric edges once you have the fabric smooth and flat. Let glue set up before you start a new side. Remember slow is better so you don’t get your fabric wrinkled. Put a heavy book on top after gluing so the fabric bonds nicely to the book. Cut the fabric at the top and bottom of the book spine so just a little piece is left to glue under at the spine edge.

Here is the how-to with a picture tutorial showing the steps for making a cloth covered bookcover.

Hexagram Star Dishcloth Pattern

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I have a new crocheted dishcloth pattern to share. I am calling it the Hexagram Star Dishcloth. Quoting Wikipedia, “A hexagram (Greek) is a six-pointed geometric star figure” which I thought was a perfect name to describe my new 6 point crocheted dishcloth.

I posted several pictures of the hexagram dishcloth below using different color schemes and cotton yarn scraps. As you can see, you can mix and match different colors to create many various looks for this crocheted dishcloth pattern.

Hexagram Star Dishcloth Pattern

Six point dishcloth measures: 10 inches at widest point
Hook: H (5 mm) US sized hook
All pattern directions in USA crochet terms.

Materials:
Sugar & Cream cotton yarn 2 ozs

Ch 5, Sl St to form ring. (You can also start with a magic circle.)

Rnd 1
Ch 2, (counts as 1 Hdc throughout) in ring work 2 Hdc, Ch 1. *3 Hdc in ring, Ch 1.* Repeat 5 times. Sl St to top of Ch 2. (6 corners)

Merry Christmas the Recycled Way

Cindy2 Comments

I was thinking about my recycled craft projects and as I was recycling some old Christmas cards, I thought of a great Christmas greeting. Merry Christmas the recycled way! It sums up what I think about much of the time and a fun message this time of the year.

Here are more Christmas ornaments that I made by recycling old Christmas cards and crocheting an edging around them. For more details check out the recycled Christmas card tutorial.

Trio of Christmas Stockings

Cindy3 Comments

Here is my trio of Christmas stockings I crocheted for the grand kids. I crocheted each one in their favorite colors and added bells to the girls’ stockings. The red one is for my 1 year old grandson so I did not put the bell on his for safety reasons.

I crocheted these stockings to 7 inches long and about 4 inches wide. I used a variation of this stocking pattern and just crocheted even on 29 stitches at the toe. I crocheted the heel and upper portion just keeping in the pattern shape with the additional stitches. I have crocheted this mini Christmas stocking so many times I can practically do it with my eyes closed. So it was easy to adapt to a bigger size. Just more stitches and more rows.