Crochet Simple Tote Bag With Pocket Tutorial Crochet Back to School Bag

Hi everyone! On today's video I'm going to show you how to crochet this really simple tote bag with pockets. Don't forget to like and comment your thoughts to let me know what you think and so without further ado let me tell you guys the materials you need to make this bag. To make this bag you're going to need 100% cotton yarn and this is the yarn that I use, it's by Loops and Threads and it's called Classic Cotton and you're going to need a total of 310 grams. With that you're going to need a 5 millimeter hook, a couple of stitch markers and a darning needle to weave in your ends. And that's pretty much all you're going to need so we can now get started with the tutorial. To start we're going to make a slip knot, to do that take your yarn and roll it on your two fingers like this making an x shape, then grab your hook and pass it underneath here and grab the yarn over here, turn your fingers and take them off and pull. Then you can pull again to adjust it to your hook. We're now going to chain 51. So to chain you have to yarn over your hook and pull through. So this is one chain, the loop on your hook does not count as a chain. Yarn over, pull through, that's two. Yarn over, pull through, three. Yarn over, pull through, four. So on and so forth until you have a total of 51 chains. Alright so here I have all of my 51 chains. What we're going to do now is place two stitch markers because they're going to help you with a step in the future. So what you want to do is take your stitch marker and place it in the second chain from your hook. So here's your first chain over here and here's the second one. So I'm going to take my stitch marker and place it in the second one just like this. Now we're going to place another stitch marker in the last chain from our hook. So here's my last chain I'm gonna take my stitch marker and place it in the last chain just like this. Once that's done we're gonna start crocheting and we're not going to be crocheting in the front of the chain we're going to be crocheting in the back bars so this is the front of your chain if you turn it around you're going to see that there's little bumps and these are the back bars of the chain so what we're gonna do is skip the first back bar over here and insert our hook in the second one where the stitch marker is in the back bar just like this we're gonna yarn over and pull through two loops on our hook yarn over and pull through two so here we have our first single crochet and we're going to be making single crochets all across our foundation chain so we're going to go over to the next back bar insert our hook and make a single crochet next back bar insert your hook single crochet next back bar insert your hook single crochet so go ahead and make single crochets all across here I've reached my last back bar so I'm going to insert my hook and make my last single crochet of the row so here I'm done with row one in row one you should have a total of 50 single crochets and I forgot to mention but we're now working on the base of our bag and we have a total of six rows of single crochets to make so we've already made one so we have five more to go to continue we're going to chain one and turn our work we're now going to skip the chain we just made and insert our hook in the first stitch of the row so skip the chain insert your hook in the first stitch of the row and make a single crochet go on to the next stitch insert your hook make a single crochet next stitch insert your hook single crochet and you're gonna repeat that all across so go ahead and do that and I'll see you guys then alright so here I'm done making my second row so to start row three we're going to chain one and turn our work again we're going to skip the chain and insert our hook in the first stitch of the row and make a single crochet and go on to the next stitch and make a single crochet and you're gonna repeat that all across so go ahead and make single crochets all across your row alright so here I'm done with my third row so keep on making rows of single crochets until you have a total of six rows we've already made three rows so you have three more rows to go so go ahead and do that and I'll see you guys then right so here I'm done making my six rows of single crochets what we're gonna do now is start working on the body of the bag so we're gonna start crocheting around the base so once you're done making your sixth round you're going to take a stitch marker and place it in the last stitch you crochet just like this now you're gonna chain one and now we're going to make five single crochets on the side here so if you pull on your work a little bit like this you're going to notice that you have five little holes so 1 2 3 4 and 5 we're going to put a single crochet in each one of these holes so my first hole is here I'm going to insert my hook in it and make a single crochet then you're gonna grab another stitch marker and place it in the first stitch now you're gonna go over to the next hole right in here make a single crochet next hole here single crochet that's our third single crochet next hole over here four and lastly last hole over here five once you're done making these five single crochets we're going to start crocheting in this side over here and this is why we put a stitch marker in this stitch because this helps us know where to insert our hook next so we're going to insert our hook in the stitch where the stitch marker is so take that stitch marker off and insert your hook where that stitch marker was and make a single crochet then you're going to go over to the next stitch right next to it and make a single crochet next stitch insert your hook single crochet and you're basically just going to keep making single crochets all across until you reach your next stitch marker on the other corner so here I have reached my stitch marker so I'm going to take it off and make a single crochet in that stitch so once you're done a crocheting in that last stitch we're gonna start making five single crochets on this side over here like we did on the other side so again if you stretch out your work a little bit you're gonna see the holes you have to insert your hook in so here's the first one one two three four and five over here so here's my first hole I'm gonna make my single crochet one next hole here two next hole here three next hole four and next hole here five once you're done doing those five single crochets we're gonna start making single crochets over here so insert your hook in the next stitch which is right in here go on to the next stitch and make a single crochet next stitch single crochet so just go ahead and make a single crochets until you reach your next stitch marker alright so here I reached my stitch marker I'm going to take it off and make a single crochet in that last stitch now I'm gonna grab back my stitch marker and place it in my last stitch over here and the last step to finish this round is to slip stitch so we're going to slip stitch in the first stitch of the round so you can take off your first stitch insert your hook in that stitch yarn over pull through and pull through again to make your slip stitch now take back your stitch marker and place it back in the first stitch of the round so we're now done with our first round to start round two we're going to chain one so yarn over your hook and pull through to chain one now this next step is totally up to you you don't have to do it but in my opinion it makes the bag look a lot better and it's also going to be easier for you to attach the pocket and the straps to the bag so I highly suggest to do this next step but again if you don't feel comfortable you don't have to do it so the next step is going to be to turn your work as you guys can see I have my blue stitch marker next to my right hand and my purple stitch marker on my left hand so now I'm just going to turn my work and now I have my purple stitch marker on my right and my blue on my left and the reason why turning your work makes your work look better is that whenever you turn your work it makes your seams straight so your stitches don't tilt and end up crooked your stitches are just going to be really straight that's the best explanation I can give but I'm sure someone in the comments can explain it better than me so once you're done turning your work what you're going to do is skip the chain you just made and skip the slip stitch and make a single crochet in the first stitch of the round which is where the blue stitch marker is so we're going to take off this stitch marker skip the chain skip this slip stitch and insert our hook in the first stitch of the round and make a single crochet once you're done making your first single crochet take back your stitch marker and put it back where it was so from now on you basically just have to make single crochets all around so you're going to go over to your next stitch and make a single crochet next stitch single crochets next stitch single crochet and so again you just have to repeat that all around until you reach your next stitch marker so go ahead and make single crochets all around and I'll see you guys when I reach the end alright so here I'm almost done with my second round so I'm going to take off this stitch marker and make my last stitch of the round I'm gonna take back my stitch marker and place it back in the last stitch I just made and now to finish this second round we have to slip stitch so we're going to slip stitch in the first stitch of the round so take off the stitch marker insert your hook in that stitch yarn over pull through and pull through again to make a slip stitch take back your stitch marker and place it back in the first stitch of the round now to start round three we're going to chain one and we're gonna turn our work again so now I have my purple stitch marker on my right and my blue stitch marker on my left we're gonna turn our work now I have my blue on my right and my purple stitch marker on my left alright so now that we've turned our work before we do anything else we're going to place some stitch markers so take your stitch marker and place it anywhere in the last round we just crocheted so let's say we just go on the last round we just made and I'm just going to take my stitch marker and place it like this not on the top stitch because we're gonna crochet in there but on this side like this and I'm just gonna place another one on the other side like this and we're doing this because this is going to help us know where to attach our straps and our pockets this step is also optional but it's really going to help you out in the future so I do recommend doing it alright so we can now continue and we're just going to be repeating the same steps over and over again until we're done crocheting the body of the bag so now again we have to skip the chain we just made and the slip stitch and make a single crochet in the first stitch of the round where this stitch marker is so we're going to take it off skip the chain skip the slip stitch insert your hook in the first stitch of the round and make a single crochet take back your stitch marker place it back in the first stitch of the round and continue by making single crochets all around your round so always go on to the next stitch make a single crochet next stitch single crochet so go ahead and repeat that all around until you reach your next stitch marker over here alright so here I have reached my stitch marker I'm going to take it off I'm going to make my last single crochet of the round take back my stitch marker and put it back in my last stitch and now to finish this round we have to slip stitch in our first stitch so take off the stitch marker insert your hook where that stitch marker was in the first stitch of the round yarn over pull through and pull through again to make your slip stitch take back your stitch marker and place it back in that first stitch so we're now done with our third round and so we're going to be repeating these steps over and over again until we're satisfied with the height of the body of the bag so you can really make it as high as you want it's totally up to you so I'm going to show you guys again how to do this to start round four we're going to chain one now I have my blue stitch marker on my right and my purple stitch marker on my left I'm going to turn my work and now I have my purple stitch marker on my right and my blue stitch marker on my left we're going to skip the chain and skip the slip stitch we just made and insert our hook in the first stitch of the round where the stitch marker is so we're going to take off the stitch marker insert our hook in that stitch and make a single crochet take back your stitch marker and place it in the first stitch of the round now go ahead and insert your hook in the next stitch and make a single crochet next stitch single crochet so you're going to make single crochets all around until you reach your next stitch marker over here alright so here I'm almost done with my round I'm going to show you guys one last time how to end the round so I'm going to take off this stitch marker and make my last single crochet in there I'm going to take back my stitch marker and put it in the last stitch of the round then to finish this round we're going to slip stitch in our first stitch so we're going to take off the stitch marker here insert our hook in that stitch which is the first stitch of the round yarn over pull through and pull through again to make our slip stitch then we're going to grab back our hook and place it back in the first stitch of the round to start round five you have to chain one and turn your work so now I have my purple stitch marker on my right and my blue on my left and when I turn my work I have my blue stitch marker on my right and my purple on my left and so to start a row you have to skip the chain and skip the slip stitch and insert your hook in the first stitch of the round so take off your stitch marker insert your hook in that stitch and make a single crochet and put back your stitch marker in the first stitch and now you're just going to make single crochets all around your round so as I said before you just have to keep on making rounds of single crochets over and over again until you feel like your bag is high enough all right so go ahead and do that and I'll see you guys when I'm done making my rounds once I'm done making all of my rounds I'll let you guys know how many rounds I made right so here I'm done with all of my rounds and I have a total of 43 rounds so here I've made my last single crochet of the round so what I'm gonna do now is pull some yarn then I'm gonna grab my scissors and cut the yarn then what you want to do is grab a darning needle and pass the yarn through and we're gonna pass the needle in the first stitch of the round where the stitch marker is and pass the yarn through and lastly what we're gonna do is take our needle and pass it in the back loop of the last stitch so here's my last stitch I'm going to insert my needle in the back loop and pull some yarn then I'm just gonna pull a little bit and I'm going to make a knot on the other side so to make a knot what I do is I just insert my needle through a little loop on the inside of the bag and I pass the yarn through but not completely so I leave a loop like this then I grab the tail and pass it through the loop and just pull to make a small knot and then I weave in my ends now we can set aside the body of the bag and we're gonna start working on the pockets and you can either make one or two pockets depending if you want one on each side or just one on one side and to make my pocket I'm going to be using this lighter color of brown so to start we're going to make a slip knot and we're going to chain 37 so again to chain we're going to yarn over our hook and pull through so that's one chain yarn over pull through two so on and so forth until you have a total of 37 chains once you've made all of your chains we're basically just going to repeat the same steps we did for the base of our bag which is that we're going to work in the back bars of the chains this is the front of your chains if you turn it around you're going to see little bumps and we're going to work in those so we're going to skip the first back bar and insert our hook in the second one and make a single crochet and we're going to be making single crochets all across so go on and make single crochets all across and I'll see you guys then once you're done making your first row what you're going to do to start the second one is to chain one turn your work then you're going to skip the chain you just made and insert your hook in the first stitch of the row and make a single crochet and you're going to make single crochets all across your row so go ahead and make single crochets all across and I'll see you guys then alright so here I'm done making my second row so I'm going to be making a total of 24 rows of single crochets you can make more if you want it's totally up to you so you can go ahead and continue making your rows until you're satisfied with the height of your pocket and I'll see you guys then alright so here I'm done making all of my rows once I'm done doing that I'm gonna pull some yarn and I'm going to cut it as I said before if you want to make another pocket you can go ahead and make it but for me I'm gonna leave it like this and start working on the straps alright so we're not going to start crocheting the strap now to crochet the straps you have to start with a big chain and the amount you chain is going to be the length of your strap so this number can be really different for everybody depending on how long you want your straps to be so something you can do is just grab the body of your bag like this and you're gonna start by making a slip knot and what you can do is just start chaining just keep chaining chaining chaining and once you feel like you have enough chains you can verify your chain on your bag to see if you like the length so I'll show you guys what I mean in a second when I'll have enough chains okay so here I've made a total of 150 chains I'm just gonna place my pocket here and the strap is basically just gonna go over it so it's going to start here and it's going to end here so this is what 150 chains looks like on my bag and I really like the length of it so I think I'm gonna keep it like this so as I said you can just make as many chains as you want and check on your bag if you like the way it looks so once you're satisfied with the length of your strap we're gonna start crocheting so once you're done making all of your chains don't forget to note how many you've made because you're gonna have to make a second one and so to continue crocheting the straps we're basically going to repeat the same steps we've been doing so this is the front of your chain we're going to turn it around and insert our hook in the second back bar so this is the first one we're going to insert our hook in the second one just like this and make a single crochet and then we're going to keep on making single crochets all across our chains so you can go ahead and do that and I'll see you guys then so here I'm done making my single crochets all across my strap what we're gonna do now is once again make a chain one to start row two turn our work skip the chain we just made insert our hook in the first stitch of the row and make a single crochet and continue by making single crochets all across and we're going to have to make a total of four rows we've already made one so we have three more to go so you can go ahead and complete your four rows and come back to the video alright so once you have your two straps and your pockets we're going to be ready to assemble everything together so the first thing you want to do is lay your work flat like this totally flat then you're gonna grab your pocket and you're going to align it with the round where your stitch marker is so as you guys remember we put a stitch marker in the second round so we're going to align the pocket with that round just like this and then you're gonna have to center your pocket so I like to take a measuring tape and just see how much space I have in each side so here I just have to toss it a bit on the side here I have six and so here I have six centimeters and six centimeters here so this is pretty much centered then we're going to place some stitch markers so when you're going to be sewing your pocket it's not gonna move around and this is the part I was talking about earlier because we've turned our work every round all of our stitches are aligned so if we take let's say something straight and I place it like this as you guys can see all of my stitches are on a straight line and they're not crooked like that so it's going to be easier for you to sew your pocket straight so once you've centered your pocket and it's in the right round on the bottom so what we're gonna do now is place a stitch marker in this bottom corner first so I'm just gonna take my stitch marker and follow the round here that my pink stitch marker is in so I'm gonna go like this and put my stitch marker on the corner and I'm gonna do the same thing on the other side and I'm gonna put a stitch marker there so I'm gonna go up and put a stitch marker on the top here like this and on the other side let's do the same thing so once all of your stitch markers are placed we're going to sew the pocket I do suggest you sewing the bottom first because I feel like this is easier to sew in a straight line than the other sides so once this one is straight the other two sides are just gonna follow so here I'm taking my darning needle and to sew you're gonna have to go through the pocket and through the bag also so I'm first going to insert my needle through this corner over here and I'm going to pass the yarn through the bag then I'm gonna pass my needle through the other side again like this you can really sew this whichever way you prefer I just prefer to do it this way so that's pretty much all you have to do to sew this you just have to pass your needle through the pocket and through the bag like this and then from the inside of the bag you just have to pass your needle through again through the bag and through the pocket like this so go ahead and sew the bottom of your pocket alright so once you're done sewing the bottom go ahead and sew this side and then when you're done doing this side sew this side and so again whenever you're sewing this side you can always reference yourself to the stitches on the body of the bag because these are straight stitches so you can sew along them to make sure that you sew in a straight line once you're done sewing your pocket you're going to be ready to sew your strap so the way I do this is that as you guys remember we made four rows I like to have two rows on the pocket and two rows on the body of the bag so half of the strap is on the pocket and the other half is on the bag so it can hide any imperfections you've made on the sides here and we're going to be sewing this strap the same way we sewed the pocket which is to align yourself with the stitches so what I'm gonna do is take a stitch marker and place it on the bottom here of my strap and I'm gonna place it on my pocket here and I'm going to follow this stitch line right over here and I'm gonna put some stitch markers on the other side too alright so once you're done placing all of your stitch markers you can start sewing the straps so to sew the straps it's really the same way as we did for the pocket only this time we're going to be sewing from here to here so from the bottom to the top and also from this side to the top and whenever you're sewing this part over here you're gonna have to go through the strap the pocket and the first layer of the bag so go ahead and sew all of this together and I'll see you guys then alright so here I'm done sewing these two straps so once you're done with this side you can flip your work and repeat the same steps over again and on this side just make sure that whenever you're placing your straps they're aligned with the straps on the other side so your straps don't end up crooked so you can go ahead and repeat the same thing on this side and you're basically going to be done with your work so once you're done sewing your two straps and your pockets the only thing left to do is to weave in your ends and then you're officially going to be done with your project so I really hope you guys enjoyed crocheting this bag if you did please give this video a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel for more crochet tutorials thank you so much for watching see you guys next time bye bye