Felted Purses

After knitting my scarf, I had 3/4 of a skein left of my hand spun. I decided to play around with it and I started crocheting a rectangle. I thought, "this might make a cute purse and I know a little girl whose birthday is coming up..." So, I made the purse and it sat, and sat, and sat. Months later, this week to be exact, I decided to felt it. My little man threw it in the wash twice and this cute little thing popped out.
I added a glass bead so it could button closed and then I had another thought, "Oh my, her birthday is long gone and she has a sister, I can't give it to her now and not give her sister something." I told my husband my dilemma and he said, "you better get knitting you have 1 week."
So, today I found a skein I made from 2 half skeins and I began to knit. 11PM and I am done. It looks very sad, but I know this ugly duckling will have a new life from the washing machine.

For those wondering how I did this...

Take a skein of wool (or a little less). Fine wool felts the best (I used merino). [Wool is not: mohair, angora, alpaca, cotton, acrylic etc. Wool is a product of sheep.]

Knit or crochet a rectangle.

With the same yarn, sew up the sides leaving a visually pleasing amount of knit fabric to flop over and be the flap of the purse.

To make the strap you can crochet a chain or braid it.

Make sure you make everything large enough to allow for at least 30% shrinkage.

Toss the purse in the wash a few times until it looks pleasing and is stiff enough to be a purse (it took my crochetted version 2 washings).
Do not worry about the type of stitch you use. A plain garter or single crochet works the best. The felting has a tendancy to make any design disappear. Some will stay, but for the most part, you ill not see little fancy stitches.

After it is felts, I cut off the unwanted strings, sewed a bead on, and cut a hole for the bead to pop through (don't cut this hole too big or it will not hold the purse closed).