Heart Granny Square Tote Bag Crochet Tutorial _ Free Written Pattern

Today, we're making a heart granny square tote with a 3x3 square layout for both sides. And if you want to purchase this bag, click the link in the description. You can find the free written pattern with extra tips at vipcrochets.com or linked in the description and if you find this tutorial helpful, please leave a like or comment to let me know. Thanks so much and let's get started. For this project, I'll be using 186 grams of 24-7 cotton yarn in ecru and 54 grams in bay leaf. This is a medium weight mercerized cotton yarn and I recommend using cotton because it stretches less than other fibers. I'll also be using a 4mm hook, some scissors, and a yarn needle. Now, let's make our first heart granny square. For this video, I'll be doing a quick run-through of the pattern so if you don't know your stitches yet or need me to go slow, then I would recommend you watch the standalone video linked in the description and the pinned comment or click the card in the top right corner. So let's start with our heart color yarn and make a slip knot or you can make a magic ring instead. Then we'll chain 4 and we'll slip stitch to the first chain we made to form a loop that we'll be working into. To start the first round, we'll chain 3 and this counts as our first double crochet and we'll do 11 more double crochets into this ring for a total of 12. Once we have our 12 double crochets, we're going to slip stitch to the top of our chain 3 and we can close the hole in the middle by pulling on the loose end. For round 2, we're not going to start with any chains. We'll skip the first 2 stitches, so that's the chain 3, then the next stitch, and in the third, we'll do 8 treble crochets. Once you have your 8 treble crochets in this one stitch, scoot them over to the right so you don't miss the next stitch and we'll do a double crochet into each of the next 2 stitches. Then in the next stitch, we'll do a double crochet and a treble crochet into the same stitch. Now we have half a heart and we'll chain 1 for the bottom point of the heart and now we'll mirror the stitches we just did. So in the next stitch, do a treble crochet and a double crochet into the same stitch. Then we'll do double crochet into each of the next 2 stitches And in the next stitch, we'll do 8 treble crochets. And we should have 2 stitches left, we'll skip those 2 stitches and do a slip stitch in between the first and last stitch from round 1. Now we have our heart, and we'll fasten off by chaining 1, cutting our yarn, and pulling through with our hook. Then we'll grab our other yarn to form the square around the heart. We'll be attaching the yarn to the 4th treble crochet we made last round. You can attach it however you like, I like to make a slip knot. Then insert my hook into the 4th stitch and put my slip knot on my hook and pull it through. Then we'll chain 3 and this counts as our first double crochet. And we'll put 1 more double crochet into the stitch at the base of the chain. And don't forget to carry your yarn if that's what you like to do. This forms half of the top left corner, which we'll complete at the end of this round. Then in the next stitch, we'll do a half double crochet, then we'll do a single crochet in the next stitch, then a half double crochet, a double crochet, then a treble crochet. Then in the next stitch, we'll do 2 treble crochets, chain 2, and 2 more treble crochets. This forms the bottom left corner. Then we'll continue with a double crochet in the next stitch, and a half double crochet in the next. Now we should be at the chain 1 space at the bottom of the heart. And in this chain space, we'll do a single crochet. Now we'll mirror the stitches we just did. So we'll do a half double crochet in the next stitch, then a double crochet, then for the bottom right corner, we'll do 2 treble crochets, chain 2, and 2 treble crochets. In the next stitch, we'll do a treble crochet, then in the next, a double crochet, then a half double crochet, a single crochet, a half double crochet. Then for the top right corner, 2 double crochets, chain 2, and 2 double crochets into the same stitch. Now we'll do the top of the heart. We'll do a half double crochet in the next stitch, then a double crochet 2 together over the next 2 stitches. Then in the same space we slip stitched to last round, between the first and last stitch of round 1, we'll do a treble crochet. Then we'll do another double crochet 2 together, then a half double crochet, and we should reach the first stitch we worked into this round. And we'll complete the top left corner by doing 2 double crochets, then we'll chain 2, and slip stitch to the top of the chain 3. So we have our square, and now we're just going to be increasing it. First we'll chain 3, and do a double crochet into the chain 2 space below. Then we'll do a double crochet into each of the 9 stitches on this side of the square. And make sure you don't miss the first one, which is the top of the chain 3 from last round. And in the chain 2 space corner, we'll do 2 double crochets, chain 2, and 2 more double crochets. And we'll do 9 double crochets again along the next side. And again in the corner, we'll do 2 double crochets, chain 2, and 2 more double crochets. And we're going to continue double crocheting along the sides. At the end, we'll complete the corner with 2 double crochets, and chain 2, and we'll slip stitch. Now we should have 13 stitches on each side of the square, with 2 chains in each corner. You can measure your square now and decide if you want another round or not. Take the length and multiply it by 3. If that's a good size for your bag, you can fasten off. If not, we can do another round. And it's the same as last round. We'll chain 3, double crochet in the chain space below and in each of the 13 stitches along this side. Then in the corners, we'll do 2 double crochets, chain 2, and 2 double crochets. And we'll repeat all the way around. At the end, we'll do 2 more double crochets in the last chain space, chain 2, and slip stitch. Now we should have 17 stitches on each side of the square. And you can continue adding rounds if you want, but I'll fasten off here. My square is about 10.5 cm, so my bag will end up being 31.5 cm. Again to fasten off, I'll chain 1, cut my yarn, and pull through with my hook. Now we have a heart granny square. We're going to make a total of 18 of these squares. And on the last square you do, do not fasten off. We'll use the yarn attached to stitch the squares together, but if you prefer to sew them together instead, you can do that. Before we assemble the bag, we can weave in the loose ends for each square. You can do this at the end, but it might be a little easier to do it before stitching them together. So thread one of the loose ends into your yarn needle. And to hide it, we'll move the yarn to get to the bottom of the row, and go under the stitches in the row. Then pull the yarn through, go down to another row, and go under the stitches in the other direction. Then snip off the remaining loose end. Once we have our 18 squares, we'll assemble the bag. Remember, we left the yarn attached to our last square, and we'll take another square and place it above. And we're going to seam the squares together at the middle. Since in crochet, we work right to left, we'll rotate it so our hook is starting at the right. Also, make sure that the right side of your squares is facing up. The back side looks like this. Make sure the nicer side is facing up. First we'll chain 1, and we'll grab the 2 squares and pull them up so they're back to back. And we'll do a slip stitch into the chain space through both squares. So insert your hook into the chain space of the closer square, then into the chain space of the other square. Then yarn over, pull through, and pull through the loop on your hook. Now we'll slip stitch across the stitches. And you can just slip stitch under both loops, it's much easier, but I'll be going through the outer loops. So that's the front loop of the closer square, and the back loop of the other square. It creates a slight ridge on the outside, and it's flat on the inside. So with our hook, we'll go to the front, and up through the V of the first stitch after the chain space. So just under the front loop. Then over to the other square, we'll go through the V and out the back of the first stitch after the chain space. And we'll complete our slip stitch. Then we'll go to the next stitch, and we'll go under the front loop of the closer square, then under the back loop of the further square, and do a slip stitch. And we'll continue lining up and slip stitching our stitches like this. Once we reach the end, we'll do a slip stitch into the chain spaces of both squares. To fully connect the sides of two squares, we have to start and end at the chain spaces, and we'll do that throughout this tutorial. Now these two squares are attached, and we'll grab two new squares and place them like this, with the right side up and the hearts upside down. And we'll continue slip stitching in a straight line across to seam these two new squares together. But every time we jump to a new set of squares, we're going to chain one so the seam isn't causing the squares to bunch up. Then we'll start with a slip stitch into the chain spaces on both squares, then slip stitch with the outer loops of the stitches, and end with a slip stitch in the chain spaces at the end. Then again, we'll grab two new squares and place them like this. And since we're skipping over to a new set of squares, we'll chain one, then start with a slip stitch in the chain spaces, and we'll continue like this until we've connected two rows of six squares. And after a final slip stitch into the chain spaces at the end, we'll fasten off. Once we have this 2x6, make sure none of them are twisted like this. And we can add on another row. We don't have to work upside down anymore, as long as all your hearts are facing the same way, it's fine. So let's place a square all the way to the right to form a third row. And we'll attach our yarn to these chain spaces. You can attach it the same way when we did round 3 for each square. Then we'll chain 1, and we can do our first slip stitch into these two chain spaces. And we'll slip stitch across with the outer loops, and end with a slip stitch through the chain spaces at the end. Then chain 1, grab a new square, and do a slip stitch into the chain spaces on the next set of squares. And we'll slip stitch across and repeat the pattern until we finish attaching our third row of squares. And at the end, we'll fasten off. Now we have 3 rows of 6 squares, and we can grab it by the middle and fold it in half, so there's 9 squares in the front, and 9 in the back. Then we're going to do 3 more seams. First we'll attach our yarn to these two chain spaces, then slip stitch down. Then we can flip the bag and slip stitch the other layer, and fasten off. Then we'll attach it to these two chain spaces, and repeat, down this top layer, then up the layer in the back, and fasten off. The third seam, we'll attach our yarn to the top left, or top right, and slip stitch down across the bottom, then up the other side, and fasten off. First let's attach our yarn here. Then we'll rotate it so we can work down the bag. We'll chain 1, and slip stitch into the 2 chain spaces, then with the outer loops of these stitches like we've been doing. The only difference is here we have our 3 chains in place of an actual double crochet. It doesn't have a front or back loop, so just go into the top. Once we do our slip stitches into the 2 chain spaces at the end of this square, we'll chain 1, and hop over to the next set of squares, and start slip stitching. And we'll repeat this all the way down the bag. After our slip stitch into the chain spaces at the very bottom, we'll chain 1, flip the bag over, and slip stitch into the next set of chain spaces, and we'll continue until we reach the top of the bag. After our final slip stitch into the chain spaces, we'll fasten off. Now our squares are connected along this line. We can flip it back to the front, and attach our yarn to the top right, and repeat the seam one more time. Again we'll attach our yarn here, rotate the bag, stitch down, chain 1 at the bottom, flip the bag, continue stitching, and fasten off at the top. Make sure that you're closing up the bottom and leaving the top open. For our final seam, we'll attach our yarn to the side at the top. And you can start on either side. We'll stitch down, across the bottom, and up the other side. And I'll show what to do at the bottom corners. So at the bottom corners, we're going to do our slip stitch into the chain spaces, then chain 1, and do another slip stitch into the chain spaces. Then we can continue stitching along the bottom. And at the other corner, we'll slip stitch, chain 1, and slip stitch into the chain spaces in the corner. Then we'll stitch up the side of the bag, and fasten off at the top. Now all the squares should be attached. Finally, we can make our straps. To make our straps, we'll make a slip knot, and chain a little shorter than the length of the straps we want to account for a slight stretching. I wanted my straps to be about 60 cm, so I chained 100, which is about 50 cm for me. Then we're going to double crochet into the 3rd chain from the hook. Here's the first, then the second, and the third chain from the hook. We'll do a double crochet into the chain, and into each chain across. Here we have our first row. To make the strap wider, we can add more rows. To add a row, chain 2, turn, and do a double crochet into each stitch across. This chain 2 doesn't count as the first stitch, so make sure to do a double crochet into the first stitch. And you can continue adding rows to make the strap wider, but I'll stop after 2 rows. Once our strap is wide enough, we're going to do one last row, but with slip stitches instead of double crochets. Right now, our strap isn't stretching at the foundation chain, but it is stretching at the top of the double crochets. Once we put a row of slip stitches at the top, it won't be as stretchy. So chain 1, and turn, and we'll do a slip stitch into each stitch across. Make sure you're not making the slip stitches too loosely, or it will be stretchy. So I've done a row of slip stitches, and the strap might not lay flat. So just stretch it out, and it should lay flat. After stretching it out, it's about 60cm long, and we can fasten off, and make an identical strap, but don't fasten that one off. Now I'll be attaching the straps while straightening and reinforcing the opening of the bag. If you want to skip that, then you can just slip stitch or sew the straps on. Our straps will be attached on either side of the square in the middle. On the strap that we didn't fasten off, we'll chain 1, and place it like this at the top of the tote. Then we'll insert our hook into the top right chain space of the square on the left, then go over the working yarn, and down into the right side of the strap. Then yarn over, pull through, and pull through the loop on our hook. This is a flat slip stitch. Then we'll go into the stitch after the chain space, over the working yarn, and down through the middle of the side of the strap, and do a slip stitch. Then the next stitch, and down through the left side of the strap, and do a slip stitch. And finally, into the next stitch, and down through the corner of the strap, and do a slip stitch. Now one side of the strap is connected, and we'll slip stitch across the top of the bag until we reach the side. At the side of the bag, we'll slip stitch into the chain space, chain 1, then slip stitch into the next chain space, and continue until we have 4 stitches left before the next chain space. Now we have 4 stitches left before this chain space, and we'll grab our other strap and attach it here. So this is not the one that's already connected, and we'll attach it the same way. There are 5 points on the strap that I connect to the bag, the right corner, the first row, the middle, the second row, and the left corner. Once it's connected over the 5 stitches, we'll chain 1, and slip stitch across the top of the middle square. After our final stitch into the chain space, we'll chain 1, and attach the other side of the strap. Make sure that you have the right strap, the one that's attached to the top layer of the bag. Also make sure that it's not twisted. And after that's attached, we'll slip stitch around until we have 4 stitches before the chain space the last strap will be attached to. Make sure the strap on this side isn't twisted, and attach it to the bag. Then chain 1, and slip stitch until the very first chain space we worked into, and we'll fasten off. After we hide the last of our loose ends, our bag is finished! If you plan to use it for anything heavier than your everyday essentials, I would recommend lining the bag with fabric. And if you want to purchase this very bag, then click the link in the description. And that's all for this video, I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and if you did, please leave a like, comment, and subscribe, and let me know if you have any questions. Thank you so much for watching, I'll see you next time.