A Brand New Bag!

At last!  I can share with you my brand new crochet bag: 

And I'm very happy to say that I didn't have to resort to any of my threats to get it finished!

Unfortunately the camera isn't doing me many favours - the colours are much deeper compared to these photos, but you can kind of get the feel of it I hope.

It all started with a pillowcase I found in a charity shop.  First I fell in love with the colour (so rich!), and then with the price (an irresistibly cheap 50p!)

The flowers are made from the contrasting parts of the same pillowcase.  I used this brilliant tutorial for the roses, and doodled my own for the tulip.  The stitching could have been neater on the roses, but I think this was before I had the lil sewing machine to help.



I love LOVE LOVE the lining material.  Another charity shop find, it's cut from a nightgown which cost around £2, and there's still loads leftover for other little projects :D

But the bit I'm most proud of is the handles... I'd been agonizing for weeks about what to make them from.  I didn't have enough of the original pillowcase fabric left, and the idea had been to make this an entirely upcycled bag... but then along came a real eureka moment:

...the underwires of a spectacularly bad bra!  Of course!  I cannot even begin to tell you how much fun it was taking a razor blade to such an uncomfortable monstrosity.  Excellent therapy! 

The metal on its own would have been a bit obtrusive, so I covered them using the same crochet cotton as I used to embroider the flower stems, and they blend in perfectly.

It's far from being a perfect project - it was muddled together in such a haphazard, can-you-tell-what-it-is-yet? kind of way - but I like it.  And with the granny stripe poking out the top?  Well, that's just even better!