Everything about this pattern, before you pay for it
Most pattern listings tell you after. Here is the whole spec.
| What it is | A written crochet pattern, delivered as a PDF. The file itself is titled The Frog Phone Bag. |
| What you make | A long-legged green frog that is also a bag. Goggle eyes on top of the head — white, set in green lids, with black pupils — and pink cheeks; a wide light yellow lip round the mouth; long arms ending in three fingers, and long legs ending in three toes. It wears light blue dungarees with a bib, two straps that cross at the back and button at the front, and a dark blue edging, with a stuffed yellow star glued to the front where a hand rests on it. A green cord strap clips to the back on two lobster clasps. |
| Finished size | The bag is about 26 cm (10¼ in) tall and 16 cm (6¼ in) wide, laid flat. With the eyes and the legs, about 45 cm (17¾ in) from top to toes. |
| Fits | A large phone. A Pro Max size goes in through the mouth. |
| Opening | The mouth: a slot across the front of the head, 26 stitches wide, edged with a lip that is worked round it and turned out. The phone slides in and down into the body. |
| How long it takes | About 18 hours. |
| Hook | 3.0 mm, and 4.5 mm for the strap. |
| Yarn | 4-ply cotton, about a US sport weight, in seven colours: green, light blue, yellow, light yellow, white, dark blue and pink. The strap is two strands of the green held together. The photos show other colourways — pink, purple, brown and bright blue dungarees — and some carry a brown strap in place of the crocheted cord. The colours are yours; these are the ones the pattern is written in. |
| Yarn needed | About 214 g (540 yd) of green, 55 g (140 yd) of light blue, 16 g (40 yd) of yellow, 10 g (25 yd) of light yellow, 9 g (25 yd) of white, 9 g (20 yd) of dark blue and 1 g (5 yd) of pink — about 314 g (795 yd) in all. The green counts a strap of about 120 cm (47 in); the length is yours, and the green moves with it. |
| Skill level | Intermediate, which is what the pattern itself says: joined rounds, joining three small pieces into one round, working along both sides of a chain, double crochet in rows and rounds, an edging, and assembly. |
| Techniques used | Starting with a magic ring, and on a chain · joined rounds, closing each one with a slip stitch · the yarn-under single crochet · joining three small tubes into one round · working along both sides of a chain · chain, slip stitch, single crochet and double crochet · the single crochet increase, the invisible decrease and the double crochet decrease · rows, turned at the end of each one and begun with a chainless standing start · stuffing small pieces, sewing and gluing |
| Worked in | Joined rounds, in the yarn-under single crochet — explained in the pattern, with what changes if you crochet the usual way. Starting chains never count; the bib’s chainless standing start does, and the pattern says so where it happens. |
| The legs and body | Six toes, each a small stuffed ball on a narrow tube. Three join into one round of 18 to start each leg, which narrows to 8 and runs on for 24 plain rounds. The two legs are joined by 20 chains into the body’s first round of 56; it grows to 68 over the legs and holds 68 for 33 rounds. |
| The mouth and head | In round 43, 26 chains bridge 26 skipped stitches — the mouth. Six rounds of light yellow round the slot, growing at the corners and then turned out, make the lip. The head decreases on two sides from 58 to 48, five more rounds take it to 8, and the tail draws it closed. |
| Eyes, arms and cheeks | Each eye is a white piece set half into a green lid, lightly stuffed, with a black pupil. The arms start as three fingers joined into one round, narrow to 6 and run long; each is sewn to a side of the head below the corner of the mouth. The cheeks are one round of pink. |
| The dungarees | Two pant legs of 20 double crochet, joined by 15 chains into a round of 70; a bib of five rows on the middle 20 stitches of the front; two straps, each ending in a buttonhole loop of 5 chains; and a dark blue edging round the top and the cuffs. The frog puts its legs through the pant legs, and the straps cross at the back and button at the front. |
| The star | Two pieces, each a circle of 40 with five points of 8, crocheted together with a little stuffing and glued to the front of the dungarees. |
| The strap | A cord worked with two strands of green on 4.5 mm, to the length you want. A sliding knot at each lobster clasp lets you lengthen or shorten it. |
| Sewing | A little: each arm with its own long tail, and the two buttons with needle and thread. Everything else is crocheted on, or glued. |
| Glue | Yes — the eyes, the pupils, the cheeks and the star. A craft glue, and a fast-setting glue for the eyes. |
| Stuffing | The toes, fingers, eyes and star only — about 15 g. The bag itself is not stuffed. |
| Lining | None. The frog is crochet throughout. |
| Count checkpoints | Thirteen: 18 and 6 on each toe, at rounds 3 and 16; 18 and 8 on the legs, at rounds 18 and 21; 68, 58, 58, 48 and 8 on the body, at rounds 5, 42, 48, 53 and 58 — before the mouth and after it; 30 on the eyelid and 24 on the eye white; 6 on the arm at round 15; and 40 on the star at round 5. |
| Also needed | Two black eyes, about 10 mm · two buttons, about 15 mm, which the buttonhole loops fit · two lobster clasps, about 3 cm (1¼ in) · craft glue, and a fast-setting glue · a sewing needle and thread · about 15 g of fiberfill · two stitch markers · a yarn needle and scissors · tweezers help with stuffing the toes. |
| Pages | 36 |
| Printing | The instructions are real text, not pictures of text — so you can search them, copy them, enlarge them, or have them read aloud. |
| Terminology | US crochet terms |
| Language | English |
| Left-handed | Written for you too. Work it exactly as written: every round has the same stitches and the same count, and your frog comes out a mirror image of the photos. The mouth’s increases and decreases go at its corners whichever way you work, and the arms, eyes and star are placed by eye. |
| Delivery | Download link on the confirmation page and in your email, straight away. |
Real crochet, captured while it was being made
You have learned to zoom in on a listing photo looking for stitches that don’t join up. You should — the shops selling patterns behind pictures that were never crocheted are real, and there are a lot of them.
So here is the unglamorous version: three green toes held side by side between finger and thumb, the hook in the round that joins them into a leg; the top of a leg with the chain that joins it to the other one looping down from it, the hook starting the body’s first round; and the chain of round 43 along the top edge of the body, where the mouth opens. Every one of these was captured while the piece was actually being made.
The mouth is the one to look at: round 43’s chain lying along the top edge of the body, the hook at the end of it — twenty-six chains for twenty-six skipped stitches, all green, before a single stitch of the lip is worked.
Nothing on this page is an AI-generated frog.
Counted twice
My grandmother taught me on her porch, and she said the same thing every time I tangled the yarn: slow down, count twice, rip it out if it’s wrong — there’s no shame in starting over.
So every pattern in this shop gets counted twice. Once when it’s written. Then again, before it goes on sale: every round is re-added, stitch by stitch, and checked against the round before it.
That’s the whole thing. It’s not clever. It is just the step almost nobody takes, because until a pattern is written down properly you can’t take it — and because nobody was ever asked to show their working.
I’m asking to show mine.
The worst thing a pattern does is not be difficult. It is to be wrong early, so that you find out rounds later and spend the next twenty minutes wondering whether it was you.
On this bag, that place is the mouth. For forty-two rounds of the body your hook goes into every stitch there is. Round 43 asks for something else: chain 26, and skip the next 26 — and the two numbers have to match, because the head above it is written to start from 58. So the count is checked on both sides of the mouth: 58 at the end of round 42, and 58 again at round 48, once each of the 26 chains holds a stitch.
Counted twice means you can tell. No more counting the same round for the third time, writing it out on paper to make it add up, and still not knowing whether it’s you or the pattern. The count in the pattern is right. If yours doesn’t match it, the slip is in the round you just made — undo that one round and carry on.
You probably have one project in a bag somewhere, stopped at a round you can still name. Often it stopped on a count that wouldn’t come out. Every count in this one comes out, which leaves you the part you came for: finishing it, and handing it to someone without an apology.
Here is a real page of it
A pattern that was never crocheted can show you a photograph. It cannot show you a page.
That box is the end of round 48: 58 stitches, the same as before the mouth, because each of its 26 chains now holds a stitch. This is page 18 of the 36 you get, and it is the same page you will be reading with a hook in your hand.
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