I’ve been doing more felting recently, and I’m concentrating on purses that I’m developing patterns for.  All I have now are rough notes, but my goal is to publish them for sale on Lulu and Ravelry. I’m also thinking about selling the purses as well.  I’m going to start with Craigslist (no listing fee) to see if anyone bites.

Here’s the “Felted Crochet Purse” Lineup

In the meantime, here’s what I have so far.  I used yarn that was already in my stash.  Didn’t want to buy any new yarn until I had the patterns worked out.  And of course, I’m only selling the patterns and bags that I designed myself.

I got a lot of help with this knitted purse from Nanea of Aloha Yarn.  She has a lovely felted purse with a flap that includes a sparkly novelty yarn that I love.  After getting some tips on how she made it, I went home to see if I could duplicate it.  It’s not quite a duplicate, but I think I did ok.  The only problem with this one is that I didn’t situate the strap ends in the body of the purse correctly, so they are a little off.  The strap also isn’t long enough, at least for my tastes.  I like to wear my purse straps diagonally across my body.  But I think it came out okay.  This one is knitted, and I included some sparkly yarn in the flap and strap.

This next purse is an adaptation of a pattern that’s in Jane Davis Felted Crochet that I’ve discussed in previous posts.  It’s supposed to have a body that tapers to a point and some embroidery in the center, but I eliminated those two details and made a simple, square purse.  The flap is what really sets this one off.  Here are two versions of it.  I crocheted the blue one a couple of years ago when I was overcome with “Felter Madness,” and decided to make it again, but with a little larger body.

I really like this Water Bottle Carrier. I crocheted it with Manos del Uruguay yarn.  I didn’t make the tie that goes around the top long enough – ran out of yarn.  But next time around, I’ll know what to do.

The Manos del Uruguay yarn is a hand spun, unplied yarn that varies in thickness (it goes from thin to thick and back again throughout the skein, if that makes sense). The thickest parts have a “roving” texture which makes it a great yarn for felting.

UPDATE 7-2-19: This pattern is now for sale on Etsy.

I crocheted two bags with Plymouth Galway yarn; here’s one of them. I’m hoping they’ll end up being big enough for a touchscreen cell phone or iPod/Pad/Touch.  I included a row of reverse single crochet around the flaps and rims of the purses and the top and bottom of the wattle bottle carrier.  Can’t wait to see how these felt.

No Hassles with Felting This Time Around

This time around, the washing-machine felting worked just fine on the two purses.  The last time I tried to use the washing machine to felt, I couldn’t get the water hot enough.  So, this time around, I added a tea kettle full of boiling water and included a lot more jeans so that there would be more friction against the felted items.

And I didn’t keep lifting the top to check to see if items were felting.  I set the timer for 15 minutes, and that was enough time for the items to completely felt.  I also put everything in a lingerie bag, but next time, I’m going to put the lingerie bag in a pillow case to make sure the wool that sheds doesn’t clog the machine.

Which Craft Produces the Best Felted Purse?

As for which purses I prefer for felting – crochet or knitted – I’m leaning toward the crocheted purses.  They work up very quickly and the resulting felted fabric is fairly sturdy.  All of the knitted ones involve knitting with two strands on fairly large needles (#10 or #11), so they don’t take too long either.  And I love knitted I-cord straps, so even if I crochet a purse, I’ll usually add a knitted I-cord strap.

If you can knit and crochet, I would suggest experimenting to see which craft you prefer for felting.