You make a tote. It looks right. Two weeks of carrying books and shopping later the handles have doubled in length, the base has gone soft and baggy, and the whole thing hangs like it has given up.
This is not a mistake you made. It is what happens when a stretchy fabric is asked to carry weight all day. But it is preventable, and most of the prevention happens before you make the first stitch.
Why it happens
Crochet fabric has give in it. Every stitch is a loop pulled through another loop, and loops open up under load. Add weight, add time, add gravity pulling in one direction, and the fabric lengthens. It does not spring back, because most yarns have no memory - they stretch and stay stretched.
Handles suffer worst because the entire weight of the bag concentrates there. The base goes next, because that is where everything settles.
How badly it happens depends on three things, in this order: the fibre, your gauge, and the stitch.
Fibre matters most
Acrylic is the worst offender for bags. It is light and cheap and comes in every colour, but it has poor recovery. Once stretched, it stays stretched, and no amount of washing brings it back.
Cotton is heavier and has almost no elasticity, which sounds bad and is actually good. A fabric that barely stretches in the first place has little to lose. It will relax slightly and then stop. This is why most bag patterns call for cotton.
T-shirt yarn and braided cotton cord barely move at all. They are thick, dense, and hold whatever shape you build. Our Striped Market Tote uses 5 mm braided cotton cord with a 7 mm hook and holds a flat 15 by 5 inch base because the material itself is structural.
Raffia and paper yarn have effectively no stretch. They are stiff enough to hold a bag shape on their own.
Polyester sits in the middle and is common in bag patterns for its shine and strength - our Textured Drawstring Bucket Bag uses 2 mm polyester held double.
If you are substituting yarn in a bag pattern, this is the one substitution where fibre matters more than weight. Swapping cotton for acrylic at the same thickness will give you a bag that sags within a month.
Work tighter than feels comfortable
The second cause is gauge. A loose fabric has more room to open up. The standard advice for bags is to go down one or even two hook sizes from what the yarn band suggests.
Your hands will complain. The fabric should feel dense and slightly stiff, and you should not be able to push a finger through the stitches. That is correct for a bag and wrong for almost everything else.
Notice how tight our bag patterns run: the Mesh Market Tote pairs medium weight cotton with a 3.5 mm hook, and the bucket bag uses a 2.5 mm hook on doubled yarn. Neither is what you would choose for a blanket.
Stitch choice
Single crochet makes the densest, least stretchy fabric of the basic stitches, which is why so many bags are made entirely of it. Our Pastel Colour Block Tote is single crochet throughout - all the interest comes from the shaping and the colour changes rather than from fancy stitches.
Taller stitches and open mesh stretch more. That does not make them wrong - a market bag is supposed to stretch to hold vegetables - but it does mean a mesh bag needs a solid base and solid handles to anchor it.
Five fixes that work
1. Line it. A fabric lining takes the load off the crochet entirely. It is the single most effective thing you can do, and it is why lining appears as an option or a requirement in most serious bag patterns. Cut the lining slightly smaller than the bag so the fabric carries the weight before the yarn does.
2. Stiffen the base. Plastic canvas cut to the base shape, slipped between the crochet and the lining, stops the bottom going soft and keeps the bag standing up when you set it down. Our Granny Square Tote uses exactly this, along with a fabric lining.
3. Reinforce the handles. Handles carry everything, so give them something that does not stretch. Work them over a length of cotton webbing, or crochet them as a long strip and fold and sew it into a tube, or run a row of surface slip stitch along the length of the handle. All three add a non-stretching line through the part under the most strain.
4. Attach handles across several stitches. A handle joined at a single point concentrates all the force into one stitch, which then distorts and eventually breaks. Spread the join across an inch or more, and sew rather than crochet the final attachment if you can.
5. Do not block a bag. Blocking is stretching a piece to shape and letting it dry there. For a bag you want the opposite. If it needs pressing, steam lightly and let it cool without hanging it up.
If it has already stretched
Be honest with yourself: mostly it does not come back. Cotton will relax a little if you wash it gently and dry it flat with the bag stuffed to its intended shape. Acrylic will not, though a very careful steam can tighten it slightly.
The practical repair is to add the support that was missing: line it now, add a plastic canvas base now, and re-make the handles shorter than the stretched length. A bag with new handles and a lining is a usable bag again.
Starting from scratch
If you want a bag that holds its shape with the least effort, pick a pattern designed around a structural material rather than one you have to rescue. Cord and raffia bags hold themselves up. Our Textured Raffia Shopper Tote stands at about 28 cm tall with a firm 34 by 10 cm base, and it does that with no lining and no plastic canvas - the raffia does the work.
Baskets follow the same logic. The Storage Basket and Scalloped Round Basket are both meant to stay rigid, which is why a tight gauge matters even more there than it does in a tote.
The full range is in our bags and totes patterns.