New Purses...

Hi y'all! If you get a minute, I hope you'll run over to my other blog and check out my new projects. I have three new purses that I have posted that were special orders, and will have at least one more by Monday or Tuesday. Let me know what you think!

Love,
Aprille :0

New Purse...

Hi ya'll! If you have time, drop by and see my latest purse on my other blog. If you haven't had a chance to visit for a while, there are a few new projects. I'd love to hear what ya'll think!

This One's For You Vols Fans!...

Here is my fourth purse, it's a University of Tennessee Volunteers purse. I'm so excited about this one, I'm a big fan, although I can't even come close to being as big a fan as my hubby!

This is all done in single crochet with Simply Soft yarn. I did the handle a little differently than I have been doing on the other purses, just for a change! I did the "T" with needlepoint. The liner is done in a Tennessee Vols printed flannel fabric.

My Third Project...

Well, it is 3:41 a.m. and I have finally finished my third purse. I made really good progress and got the body of the purse done at the first of the week in one night. But, I was doing some different things with this one, so it took a bit longer than I had expected.

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I used a shell stitch for the body, which I had never done before. The handle was crocheted using two strands of yarn together, which I had also not done before in my purses.

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I decided to do a bit of decoration on the stitching, so that took a little while, but wasn't very hard. The flap for the purse needed to be angled (at least I wanted it to be!), so I had to learn how to do that, and my mom also showed me how to do the button loops in a different way than I had done before, which I liked much better, and stronger.

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I also got my first order for a purse yesterday. A lady asked me how much I was charging for the purses, and told me what color she would like, etc. Also, Misty suggested that I start a separate blog for my purses, so I will be putting that up shortly. I am deciding on a name and trying to get the details worked out before I put up the new site. This is SO exciting!!!

My Second Project...

Here it is...

This is my second purse (if you missed the first one, please see my last craft post). I started it on Wednesday night, and got through with the purse and liner (used the Winnie the Pooh fabric again) by Thursday night. However, it has taken me the better part of the past three days to complete the rest - the two handles, fastener, button, and the two flowers on the bottom left-hand corner. This purse is just a little over twice the size of the last purse I did, and my mom has taught me some new stitches since I made the first one. My last purse was all done in single crochet, while this one was done with single and double crochet. I might be able to go faster with a pattern, but I'm just not quite ready for that yet! My mom sat down and showed me how to do the flowers, and I have made three so far - I really like them! This is a close-up of a the flowers and button (below).

Thank you, ladies, for your encouraging words about my last purse. Your craftiness has been a big factor in my yearning to learn to crochet. You are all inspiration to me and precious to my heart. And this does not just go for those of you who crochet or knit or sew, but to all of you who take care of your families with such zeal and love, and share bits of your wisdom online for the benefit of all. I love you all. Great BIG ((HUGS)) to all of you! You have blessed and enriched my life through your friendship across the miles.

Thank you, mom, for showing me through my whole life how to be a christian, a wife, a mom, and for setting an example of producing things like this with your own hands. You have helped to shape my personality and every aspect of my life. You are amazing, you are a rock - just a mountain of strength. I love you!

My First REAL Project...

I am SOOOOOO excited!!!! I have not posted this week because I wanted to wait until I had my first project to post.


My mom had told me at the first of the week that I should try a different yarn, just to try something new and see what the different types of yarn are like. I also used a different hook. My mom had brought me a bag of some leftover yarn of hers, most of it was baby yarn. There was some HomeSpun yarn though, that was leftover from a project she had done for my son, so I tried it first. I thought this would give me a chance to use a bigger hook too (K). I found that I really did not care for that type of yarn much at first, it's not smooth, and I thought I would have a hard time with it. I actually ended up liking it pretty good.


I was just practicing with it, but I kept going until I had a pretty good sized square. I took a few minutes trying to figure out what I could do with it. I didn't just want to sit around crocheting for no reason...I wanted to MAKE something!!! So, it came to me as I looked at it; I would make a purse! Nothing fancy of course, but I knew exactly what I needed to do. I didn't have a pattern or anything, I just went by what I had in my head.



Well, I just finished it a little while ago, and here it is...

I had some material in my craft stuff that would go just perfect, I thought, with the yarn. It was an off-white fabric with Winnie the Pooh characters on it, very cute.

I found some really cute big buttons at Wal-Mart and made just a really basic loop fastener to go around the button. In retrospect, I think maybe I should have used a different color yarn for the loop, but I'll have to save that for another purse - I'm not changing this one now! The loop works fine and is easy to see in person, but I think it would have made it a little prettier to put a different color fastener on.

So, please let me know what you think! I certainly know it is far from perfect, but it is my first project and I'm so, so happy to have completed it. I have such a sense of accomplishment just from completing this purse! I already have more ideas for what I will be doing next.


Also, this purse is fairly small because the width was already set before I decided to even make a project. I definitely plan on making my next purse BIGGER!