I found the Mandala from
The Little treasures Blog. She found this lovely Mandala online and also transcribed it. Which is why I ended up choosing this as a starting point as I felt like I needed the text. I ended up following the chart and referring back to the text if I was a little unsure. I’m not sure where she found the original mandala to give credit unfortunately.

After knitting this in finger weight yarn as a plain doily/ mandala I decided to use kitchen yarn.
I altered a few things in pattern. In row 7 to get it to work I sc into every 4th not every 5th stitch.
I changed the last row to a scalloped edge.

When finishes I decided that I would try and make a hobo bag out of it.

I had to straighten out one edge and then crochet half Mandal again for flap. I did this with a mix of triple crochet, double and half double and single stitches.

I then folded pattern chart in half, and rolled it. It was a little tricky in some patched and I just fudged it. I scalloped this too.

I then repeated the mandala again and when it came to the edging, I flattened out one side as I was crocheting. I then crochet a few rows until happy.

I lined the bag with some lacy fabric I had in the centre and then I hand sewed a layer of plain calico to each side. I had to do this as the edging was very gappy and I was concerned that there would be holes if I just inserted a. Bag lining. Given the shape reminded my if an owl I used remnants from a great owl fabric I had stored away.

I was unsure of the handle and still am a bit. I wanted a leather strap to break it up a wee bit and mum gave me some remnant of brown leather left over from covering her lounge. I have no leather too,s however so when I came across the green strap I’d saved from and old bag I happily used it.

I sewed together a little cat from some fabric I’d had made from Spoonflower from some of my doodles for a little bit of whimsy.

I’m happy with how this hobo bag turned out given that I’ve never felt comfortable editing and making up rows, having only followed patterns stitch by stitch before.