The Bobble Stitch Purse

I'm crocheting a purse. I'd like to sell small purses and perhaps slippers at the market, in the spring/summer. I decided to use the bobble stitch for the purse. I made a front and a back, 9 rows by 9 rows.

I stitched the front and back together using some of the yarn, with a large needle. I also made a little fabric liner to go in the purse.

Ahhhh, yes. And that means that I did uncover the sewing machine. And in that process I decided to tidy my sewing basket, two sewing boxes, and several drawers. All of which organizing I found very satisfying and relaxing. If you have a temperament like mine, you'll understand that. I am pacified with fiddling.

The purse was easy, but then I needed a strap for it. I noticed on Pinterest that it's important to put cording inside a crocheted or knitted purse strap. Otherwise the strap will stretch and be too flexible and weak. The cording strengthens the strap and makes it amazingly solid. I think this strap (below) took me as long as the purse did!

I'm beginning to find real satisfaction in looking at my tidy, even stitches, even when I'm trying something new, or something I don't have a pattern for. I made this strap simply by looking at a photo here. The page is in French, with little instruction.

I had no cording, so I used some piping instead that had been sitting in a drawer for many years. It worked very well. I think the idea is for the crochet to be a casing around the inner cord, which is the real strap and bears all the weight. The cording is attached to the purse and takes the stress.

However, the strap I made seemed too big for the little purse. And I had no way to make this type of strap any thinner.

I found another idea for a strap -- a crocheted i-cord. Here's a link to the youtube, showing how to make this strap. This must be the most difficult, bizarre crochet stitch I've tried yet.

It doesn't help that I'm using a very small hook, a zero. There are only 3 stitches on the hook, but you must remove two of them repeatedly, and put them back on.

It makes a solid tube, so it's rather strong. It will still have some stretch, but it will be slim -- perfect for a small purse.

But the stitch is so tricky, and it's easy to drop a little strand of the yarn occasionally, as I did in the photo above. Sigh. I'll need to go back and fix that so it doesn't show. I imagine I'll use this strap with the purse, and save the larger strap to go on another purse later. But I'll need to buy another skein of this yarn too. Oh, the joys of being entrepreneurial!