Share-A-Craft: Cabled Purse

Share-A-Craft is just as much fun as a tilt-a-whirl, but with less stomach upset and possible vomiting. Every Monday, I post a project of any type that I've recently or not so recently done. If you want to share right back, I'd love to see what you've been making.

I was so super excited to try this purse. I found the pattern on ravelry.com, and just fell in love with it. It is beautiful. Beautiful. It's the type of project that I look at and can't believe I really made it. Here's a link to the pattern: Bag with Cables.I used four skeins of yarn, some cheap-o Caron stuff and I could have made another 1/2 purse with what I had left over. It calls for bulky yarn, but I used two strands held together.

You also do them on 5mm needles, which is insane. It is very tight and hurt my hands to do too much at once, but martyr to my craft, I just put up with the aching hands. It doesn't say the length of circular needles needed, so I started out on the 16" ones, which was fine until I got to those crazy increases. I switched over to longer needles after that and switched back to 16" to do the garter stitch at the top.The handles I purchased at Hancock. The lining for the inside is some quilting fabric. Total, I probably spent around $25 for the whole project, although I don't keep careful track and I don't count it if I have leftovers, since I can use them for other projects. I had buttons left over and a lot of yarn, which I used to make two more hats. As far as time goes, I probably spent about 8 hours (just a guess) knitting it, it was slow because of the difficulty of the thick yarn and small needles, and a few more sewing the lining.The pattern itself I didn't find too hard to follow, despite this being my first time doing cables. After a few rounds, I got very, very bored. There are 22 cable repeats. I was also confused for a bit, because the chart is called M1 in the pattern and that also means "make one" in knitting abbreviations, but once I figured that out, it was pretty easy. I also didn't do the button holes, instead opting for a magnetic purse closure with covered buttons hot glued to the outside.I maybe would make this again, but I'd have to be on a long car trip or something else when being bored wouldn't be too bad a liability, but I adore the purse with the devotion in my little craft-loving heart, so maybe someday. . .

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.