FO: Dragonfly Purse

While watching 80s movies today (ghostbusters, return to oz, and the goonies), I finished my dragonfly purse. I started this last week sometime when I got a random brainstorm for a felted purse. I knew I wanted to embroider something on it, but I didn't know what until yesterday.

Yarn: Lamb's Pride Worsted, M78 Aztec Turquoise, 1 skein
Black crochet cotton
Needles: #13 straights and #11 DPNs
Other Materials: sewing thread, sewing needle, yarn needle, tracing paper, masking tape, x-acto knife, zipper, liner fabric
Finished dimensions: 8" wide by 5.5" deep, strap is about 24" long
Pattern: (made up as I went along)

With #13 needles and holding two strands of yarn together, CO 25 and knit in stockinette for 15 inches. BO loosely. Sew up both sides.

At the seam on one side with DPNs, pick up 4 stitches (two on each side of the seam) and knit I-cord for 25" (or shorter--it shrunk less than I was hoping).

(note: if you don't have #11 DPNs [I didn't], use #11 straights and just slide them back onto the left needle after you knit each 'round'--it's a bit of a pain but I'm cheap)

Pre-felting, with a dvd for scale.

I felted it in my bathtub/sink, switching back and forth between hot water and ice water.

Embroidery: For some reason I came up with the idea of embroidering a dragonfly on it. I guess I like a challenge. I drew up a stylized dragonfly on my notebook (which is roughly the same size as the purse), then I traced it onto tracing paper and taped it to my purse and used sewing thread to do a running stitch around the design (I was convinced this wouldn't work, but it did). When I was finished I carefully cut off the tracing paper with the x-acto knife so I wouldn't pull on the stitches.



I used the running stitch as a guide to backstitch the crochet thread on there. I was surprised how well it worked. Then I cut off as much of the sewing thread as I could (there's still a lot in there but you can't see it), then sewed in the lining and the zipper.


(Detail of the dragonfly)


Yesterday at work I splurged on 2 skeins of Mango Moon handpainted viscose yarn. This will probably become a purse (I had a dream about a design I could do. Apparently I was excited about it).