Crafty Diversions: "Lavender" Purse

Sunday, May 28, 2006

"Lavender" Purse

Well, I was thinking of lavender plants when I dyed the yarn for the purse, and for a lack of a better name, I am calling it "Lavender." This took a while to complete, partly due to the many steps and partly due to lack of time. So, here's the photo pictorial from beginning to end (to get a better view, click on the pictures):

(1) First, it started out ast a Goodwill sweater and then I unraveled it and got tons o' yarn (below):

(2) Then I mixed various shades of green and lavender dye and hand-painted the yarns. I blogged the results in a previous post.

(3) Then I knitted the hand-painted yarn from a pattern of my own design, and made it so that I wouldn't have to sew ear flaps to make the bottom gusset of the bag.

(4) After I finished knitting the bag, I felted it in my washing machine. The flower on the front is a knitted flower, also my own pattern, with a few seed beads in the center. The yarn I used for the flower is leftover from the cashmere/merino seafoam stitch scarf I knitted for Kim.

(5) The lining was attached by hand-sewing and I added a magnetic closure. It's pretty roomy on the inside - I love the light green accent fabric. I also cut out a plastic canvas to fit into the bottom of the purse so that it will sit without falling over, and to give it more stability when in use.

(6) Here's the another picture of the finished product and a close-up of the embellishment. As mentioned earlier, the flower was hand-knitted. The little swirls and balls were needle-felted.