Okay heads up on this pattern, it was my first attempt at making a purse and I thought the nylon cord I bought would be great since it wouldn’t get fuzzy like regular yarn but I must have not used a small enough crochet hook or maybe it was the material itself not stiff enough to hold it’s shape well enough so I actually built a structure out of a plastic folder for the inside of this purse and I’m already working on a second attempt so, take this with a grain of salt hah.
Side (make two)
CH 15 + CH 1 and turn
Rows 1 – 3: SC Across + CH 1 and turn (15sts)
Rows 4 & 5: SC Across but SC DEC in the last two stitches from the last row + CH 1 and turn (13sts)
Rows 6 & 7: SC Across + CH 1 and turn (13sts)
Rows 8 & 9: Repeat rows 4 & 5 (11sts)
Rows 10 – 15: SC Across + CH 1 and turn (11sts)
Rows 16 & 17: Repeat rows 4 & 5 (9sts)
Rows 18 – 20: SC Across + CH 1 and turn (9sts)
Rows 21 & 22: Repeat rows 4 & 5 (7sts)
Rows 23 & 24: SC Across + CH 1 and turn (7sts)
Don’t finish off, run into the edge,
CH 1 and SC across down the side (24 sts)
CH 1 SC across the bottom (15 sts)
CH 1 SC across up the side (24 sts)
Finish off with an SL, leave a long tail to tuck in
Base
CH perimeter of the side pieces,
I counted/thought about 50 in my video but, for the black purse I missed it for about 25 stitches, so I’d do about CH 75 to be safe next time so:
CH 75 + CH 1 and turn
Row 1: SC Across + CH 1 and turn (75sts)
Rows 2 & 3: HDC Across + CH 1 and turn (75 sts)
Row 4: Repeat row 1
Rows 5 & 6: Repeat rows 2 & 3
Follow this pattern for as wide as you want the purse to be I did up to 24 Rows to it was a little wider than the height of my phone
Finish off with an SL, leave a long tail to tuck in
(also since I shorted the original CH at 50 and not 75 I had to crochet a little SC across to match the sides up but not writing it up here since now I know better haha)
Connect the edges to the base
I SCed across the edges of the base and the sides, trying to match them up as best as possible then I turned it inside out, so the “seams” of the SC connection were hidden and provided a little more structure to the purse
Base toggle (Optional, next time I’d secure a metal D ring)
Leave a long lead tail
CH 5 + CH 1 and turn
SC Across + CH 1 and turn for two rows
Leave a long tail finish off with an SL
Tucking the two tails into the base midway up the base’s front, tie the two tails together inside the purse (making sure it’s right-side out at the time you want those tails inside the bag and just the toggle outside)
The thought though is I won’t do this again, I should have secured a metal D ring instead because I wanted the claw hook from the front to this toggle, and where it’s crocheted the claw hook gets caught in the loops and it’s a pain in the ass when you’re using the purse.
Front
I was inspired by the fabulous work done by amazingly talented crocheters on IG, where the crochet purses have the cross-hatched front straps
Horizontal straps (make 5)
CH 31 + CH 1 and turn
SC Across + CH 1 and turn for 3 rows
Finish off with an SL, leave a long tail to tuck in
Vertical straps (make 5)
CH 21 + CH 1 and turn
SC Across + CH 1 and turn for 4 rows
Finish off with an SL, leave a long tail to tuck in
Connect the Horizontal straps first, by SC Across to attach each one by the short end, don’t finish off just run SC Across the last one’s long edge, and align the loose short ends so they’re flat across and in the correct order.
Finish off with an SL, leave a long tail to tuck in
Connecting the vertical straps is a little more complicated.
First, stitch the tops of the short ends of the vertical straps to the Horizontal top strap,
you have to stagger them though so the cross-hatching works:
one behind, one in front, one behind, one in front, one behind
Now that the tops are secure, weave each one through the horizontal straps and SC them to the last horizontal straps long edge.
Hopefully, the video shows you how I did that without being too confusing.
Now I added a claw hook to the middle vertical front strap with another “base toggle” from above, really not the best or most secure way of doing this, next time I’ll crochet the hardware directly in instead of trying to attach them after the fact.
Strap
I crocheted a thin rectangle that was double the width of my purse when folded in half, I put two D rings in and then connected the ends so each side had a D ring and SC edged around both layers of the rectangle to stabilize the handle and position the D rings properly
This time around I made two more “base toggles” and adhered them to the front vertical straps to connect the D rings to the purse, next time I’ll weave them in as I make the top/front piece of the purse.
Finishing
Now the material and gauge I used for this project weren’t sturdy enough it was very difficult to use this purse out in the wild haha so I created a plastic structure inside to prop it up better, though the front is still pretty floppy. Oh well. The next attempt is already going better and I’ll post that when it’s completed!