It’s Friday!! Hope you all had a great week. The week for the world of C & C was quite eventful. The C & C HQ has turned into a research lab to create new patterns (and random bread recipes…).

Today, I want to introduce you to my new improved crochet purse kits and patterns and a tutorial for how to attach the purse onto a sew-on frame.

Crochet purse - wild flowers

This is a crochet kit for confident beginner upwards. The kit comes with 2 balls of yarn and frames so that you can make two purses exactly like the photo above. This means from one kit, you can give one and keep one to yourself. For more information, please click here.

Despite of all the craze about sewn purses, knitted and crochet purses are not often seen. The main reason for this is probably because making knitted purses can be much more difficult than sewn purses due to a very stretchy nature of knitted (less so for crochet) fabrics making the purses saggy and less “structured”.

Knitted purses are special and therefore it is definitely worth overcoming the problem. At C & C HQ, everything I design must be usable so I use the following techniques to get around the problems and create a perfect knitted purse.

1) adding an extra thickness to the knitted fabrics (e.g. lining fabric as in Macaroon Knitted Purses), or

2) using stitches that make tight fabrics (e.g. cables / double crochet (or sc in US terms), or

3) using yarn that makes a strong fabric (e.g. Shetland yarn / tweedy yarn).

Of course, if you put a really heavy thing in it, it will sag but it’s less likely if you use the above techniques. For my new crochet purse kit, I utilised (2) and (3) above to achieve a nice structured purses.

Sew-on frames are used for these crochet purses, because you don’t need to use any glue (you can if you want to but I found it’s not necessary for this size) and I quite like the little yarn stitches that comes out on the frame

The following tutorial is to show you how to attach the purse onto a frame. This is a traditional Japanese way of sewing on to the frames.  This will apply to all the sew-on purse frames whether it is knitted, crochet or fabric purses.

Step 1: Insert the purse into the frame by matching top two corners of the purse to the corners of the frame. Cut yarn approx. 1 m and use this to sew the purse onto the frame.

Step 2: Using an embroidery needle that is thin enough to go through the holes of the frame, insert the needle from the WS of the purse (approx. 5 mm from the edge). If this is your first stitch, insert through the second hole.

Step 3: Then insert the needle into a hole one before where you have just pulled out.

Step 4: Repeat steps 2 and 3. For knitted or crochet fabrics, make sure the rows of the purse pararells with the line of the frame.

Step 5: Tidy ends at the WS of the purse. Make sure both ends of the purse is fully inserted in the gap of the purse frame.

Step 6: Lastly, cover the frame with a piece of fabric will prevent it from being scratched when squeezing with pliers.

That’s it!

… snif, snif… I think my bread is done. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

P.S. If you find this tutorial useful, please re-tweet by clicking the re-tweet button (thanks!).