Makings - Holiday Crochet

Remember my idea to use up the colours left over from my Cosy Stripe blanket?
I had started making a stack of Maybelle Flowers with the colours and then I planned to turn them into squares.
I thought that this would be a good project for the summer holidays. Once you have a couple of the flowers and squares done then you don't really need to think about the pattern and so it's just the sort of project to work on while keeping one eye on boys running about outside.
I got the first two rows of a blanket done in the first couple of weeks of the summer holidays and am really pleased with how it's looking. I'm trying my hardest to keep the colours random but then at the same time not have too similar colours close together!

 But then I got to thinking that since this is going to take a while, and since I have not long finished a big blanket project, it would be nice to work on something smaller that I could complete quickly.

Over on Instagram I read about these Fat Bottomed Bags that were basically just a big granny square. The square is gathered at the sides, top and bottom and the bag is embellised.

 Everyone was using this pattern here, in memory of crochet blogger Wink who very sadly lost her personal battle with depression last month.

There were so many variations of the bag going around. Some of them very colourful and with lots of embellishments and others more simple.

Since my one was going to be for myself, and since I'm not really fancy or into lots of fussy trimmings, I knew I wanted to keep mine neutral and quite simple.

And here it is...

It took me a week to complete, but that wasn't with me working on it every evening, and I'm pretty sure that if you don't have quite as many distractions as I do then you could easily complete it in a few days.

I was able to buy all the supplies I needed for it from two local shops on the island - a wool shop and a craft shop. The sparkly button in the flower was one that I found in my mum's sewing basket.

I love the vintage feel of the lining - which is actually very shoddily hand sewn on as I couldn't find any pins in my mum's afore mentioned sewing basket, and so I was stitching it on as best as I could while trying to also hold the rest to the shape of the stretchy crochet below!

One change I did make to the pattern was the sides, which according to the pattern were left open. I wanted to make mine more secure and so stitched up the sides.

It's not going to be my everyday bag, which always ends up more full of everyone else's stuff than mine, but will be my special bag. Maybe my Sunday bag for going to church, as long as everyone else realises that whatever they want to bring they carry themselves!
Now I need to decide whether I should do a few more small things - I bought the Mollie Makes Crochet Special and it has lots of lovely wee projects in it - do another row of the Maybelle Flower blanket, or do a bit more of Calum's neglected ripple blanket that I told him would be ready in time for the weather turning cold.
Any suggestions?