My granddaughter asked me for a handbag. Naturally all sorts of ideas followed about what kind to make. I decided to stay with the colours and style of the dress and hat . Of course the yarn from the dress was almost gone, so I had to choose something else. I still had plenty of yarn left from the knitted skirt I made for myself, so I decided to use both the lighter and darker purple. The final idea and pattern for the bag came from Pinterest .
To make things easier for myself, I watched a crochet tutorial as well. I made three of those circles altogether, crocheting the third one as complete circles all the way round. I used the third one as the flap. On the bag itself I actually folded the rounded edge back inside. I simply preferred a straight edge and doubted whether it would have looked as nice left rounded.
I joined the sides with slip stitches, used flowers left over from the dress as decoration, added a button as the fastening and it was finished. Well, not quite, because I made a lining too. The bag is crocheted in stitches with gaps between them, so I thought some little thing might escape through. I made a thin lining, leaving the flap unlined.
Once one little girl was getting a bag, the other one discovered that she wanted one too. Her firm request was for an entirely pink bag. I did not make it entirely pink. Instead I made a Hello Kitty-themed bag. Once again I found help in the vastness of the internet, more precisely on YouTube. My problem was that I had thinner yarn and a smaller hook, so I could not follow the instructions exactly. I watched the video and we crocheted together 🙂 There was nothing particularly difficult about it, and in any case I had to adapt it a little so the bag would be the size I needed. My little bag came out like this, not incredibly fancy, but still pretty and sweet. Here it is stuffed full so that it keeps its shape. I still have to decide on the fastening.
I dipped both bags in starch water too, but could not be bothered to iron them all the way dry, so they stayed fairly soft. Perhaps not quite as soft as before, and they do hold their shape a little.