My latest purse

This is the latest knit purse. The design continues to evolve and this one has turned out to be the most 'professional' one yet.

I chose three "fancy" yarns in my favorite shade of green. Then I let the yarn talk to me. My basic design is to knit or crochet a base. This one was about 12x3. Then I pick up stitches all around and knit in the round, changing colors and stitch patterns whenever the muse strikes. I ended this one with a linen stitch and that caused the looser stitches to pull in together and make a very nice shape to the purse.

I cast off using the iCord cast-off, which let me hide my zipper nicely. I interlined with cotton/poly batting, lined with some shiny green fabric, installed a zipper, all by hand this time. Much easier to control the stitches than with the sewing machine, although it takes longer. The handle was from a straw handbag purchased at a thrift shop.

To help shape the purse, I took some of the green ribbon yarn and tied off pleats at each side. I also used the ribbon yarn to actually tie the handle to the purse.

I really like my purses to have a zipper. I also like the purse to have some body. I find many of the knitted purse patterns online to be pretty in the pictures, stuffed with tissue paper, but unattractive when they are put into use. So I have continually worked out what I want in a purse and how to achieve it. I work backwards: I know what I want the result to be and I figure out a way to get it.