You must now fold in half your long piece of work, and join up the sides to make it into a bag. The sides are joined just the same as the other part, taking first 3 loops from one side and 3 from the other until you get to the bottom. With a little piece of thread, fasten off very neatly on the wrong side, sticking the hook in the middle of one of the strips before finishing off, to make it quite firm.
To finish the top of the bag make a loop in the thread, draw this through the top of one of the strips, make 5 chain stitches, then 1 double crochet into the joined loops, 5 chain, 1 d c into middle of next strip. Do this all round the top of the bag, and fasten off.
For the cord, make a chain of 36 inches. Sew 10 little white rings at even distances round the bag, about 2 inches from the top. Run the cord through these rings twice, and when you get back the second time to the ring you started from, join the cord neatly with a needle and cotton. Now you see it will pull up quite nicely each side, and Auntie can hang the bag on her arm.
We have not talked about lining the bag. Perhaps you don’t want to line it, but if you do, make a bag of silk or sateen (like the one described on [page 11]), the same size as the macramè bag, and slip it into it, just catching it at the corners with a few tiny stitches, so that the lining does not slip out of the bag. This lining should have a nice deep hem at the top, which could peep over the top of the macramè bag. Your bag is now finished, and if Auntie is not delighted with it, I shall be very much surprised.
The Amiable Pussy Cats.
Doesn’t your pussy cat always like to be near at hand when the table is laid for tea, on the chance of perhaps getting a saucer of milk? Of course, you never let pussy himself sit on the table, but it would be rather uncommon, wouldn’t it, to have a cosy on the table with two dear little pussies worked on it like the one in the picture? I think Mother would like it, too, don’t you?
The cosy cover in our picture was made of white Hardanger canvas, and is not fastened to the tea cosy itself, but is made loose, so that it can be taken off and washed. Red “Bright-eye” thread was used for working the cats.
