Rippletastic purse

Ever since I made my mom her hexagon purse, I have been wanting to make one for myself!  I love the festive colors that the hexagon purse used but I wanted something a bit more grown up... more sophisticated... and I wanted to have a go at using thinner yarn too.  It was perfect that I ran into this free Vanna White Patten on one of those little cardstocks they put up all over the store with free patterns.  I was instantly in love and I knew I had the PERFECT yarn stashed away at home to make it too!

I rushed home and started putting colors together.  I had 4 different colors and I only needed 3, don't ask me why but it took me forever to decide.  FINALLY I figured it out and I went stitching away!  Many many nights later, I came up with this!

LOVE the colors!! I think I made the right choice with the color combos if I say so myself :-)  The yarn is sooo soft too!! It's made by Caron and called SPA and it's an acrylic/bamboo blend.  At least the light gray and pink are.  The dark gray is also Caron SPA but it's a acrylic with merino wool blend.  They're both amazing and so easy to work with.  The bamboo blend was a bit thicket than the merino wool blend so I just made sure that I made those rows a little tighter than the dark grey ones.

Because the yarns were a bit different in thickness, I made sure I blocked the poop out of it!  I put a damp towel over it and just put the iron on top with the steam coming out.  I didn't leave it on there, I just dabbed it on/off and on/off..... I did that until the towel on top was nearly dry and it worked like a charm.

  

    The pattern included a method to fill in the ripples so i filled away!  I was going to fill it in with stripes just like the rest of the bag but hey at this point, I was just kinda lazy for all that color work and I just wanted to be done!

I found this great grey fabric with little felt circles on it in the remnant section for half off at Joanns!!  Talk about luck!  I had to make sure it wasn't stretchy though so that it would take the stress of the contents in the bag instead of the crocheted fabric.

I stitched them together by hand really quick just to hold it in place so I could sew it up with the sewing machine.  I used the bright green thread jsut to make it easier to see what thread I would have to cut out later...

I pinned the sides together and started stitching them up using the light grey yarn...

I just love all that rippley goodness!!  All that's left to do now is put a strap on it and put together a matching outfit... so fun :-)  I'll post pics of the final product when I get around to deciding whether I'm going to buy a strap or make one... what do you think??

***~Thanks for stopping by!~*** 

Happy Crafting!

Happy New Year

I can't believe it's 2012!  Crazy how time flies by... I feel like it was yesterday that the world was freaking out over the computers crashing bc of Y2K.... well I'm glad it didn't otherwise you wouldn't be reading this :-)

Everyone always says Happy new Year and has great parties but every new year I never feel any different.... except this one!  It really is a happy new year for me!  I finally finished my electrical engineering degree at UCF and .....wait for it.... I got a job!  It's been a huge transition to make from student to "young professional" or at least that's what they call me but I wouldn't say i'm really that professional quite yet ;-)

For the first time in a VERY long time I could sit around and do NOTHING!  And let me tell you , it was fantabulous!Well I guess we didn't really do nothing since we did road trip to New Jersey, then stayed at my parents house in Daytona Beach and then went to South FL for New years... But it was nice bc while I was at all of those different places, I didn't have to worry about school and when the next assignment was due OR about work!  It was a very much needed vacation...  One thing I did do... a whole lot of was crochet of course!  I started a bit late on the xmas presents (and yes December 25th is only a bit late in my world) but the important part was that I got them done! ok ok I'm still working on ONE but I will get it done!!

This is one of the xmas presents i actually finished!  It was a gift for the bf's sister.  I've been wanting to make her something and just couldn't figure out what color to use... well she's getting married and this was the exact color on her "save the date" magnets she sent out!  Perfect, I saw the color and fell in love with it.  It's pretty awesome what 1 skein of yarn and 1 crochet hook can do!

It needed something else though, so I made this little butterfly to hold it nicely folded while it made its way back up to New Jersey

Then I whipped up a nice cozy 100% wool scarf for the bf's momma.  The yarn is stitch nation by Debbie Stoller and it's amaaaazing!  The color is to dye for (hehe) and it was super easy to work with.  I loved the end product too!  I used Debbie Stoller's pattern "One Skein Scarf".  It was pretty chilly up in Jersey and this scarf is going to be perfect for those windy winter nights.

 When giving a gift, I feel like presentation is key... You have to make it look nice otherwise it doesn't really have the same affect, ya know?  I found some lilac ribbon and made a little bow on it to hold the scarf nicely folded during transit.  Put them side by size and wrapped them up in tissue paper...

and off they went!

***~Thanks for stopping by!~*** 

Happy Crafting!