Finished Object: Sea Feral Purse Plucked from the Murky Depths of the UFO Pool.

According to my Ravelry project page, I began this sucker in December, 2007.

The inspiration behind it began with the fiber I bought at ReBelle in Lexington, Kentucky, May, 2007: banana silk, hemp, and corn fiber. They were unexpected and non-traditional, so they deserved to be transformed into something unexpected and non-traditional as well. Feeling a bit adventurous (dare I say “rebellious”?) I opted for a purse using a feral knitting technique rather than a pre-set pattern. To put an extra spin on it, I added a bit of hardware bling to most sections that were knit out of banana silk. (As for the “sea” part of the name, the colors remind me of a coral reef.)

Although I was knitting this using feral techniques, I still needed to create a rectangle with one open side. My first solution was cut the bottom off a paper grocery sack which was about the size of my finished purse, and map the progression of knit shapes on it much like the continents on a globe. That gave me a brief moment of confidence, but all was dashed as soon as I needed to turn a corner. I mean, how do I make such a fine-tuned mathematical construction happen when my my gauges and edge shapes were all over the board?

Fast forward to Me Week(s) March, 2010, which was unofficially dedicated to getting projects unstuck. My solution was to build a better box out of corrugated cardboard, and use T-pins to hold my knitting in place as I worked. Granted, the box was entirely in the way 90% of the time, slowing me down to a crawl. It also made it almost entirely unsuitable to travel to knit group. But I was able to block, stretch, and knit-to-fit the remainder of the purse.



With that completed, I turned my attention to creating the lining, and sourcing the materials to make the handle.

I had originally planned to use some pink lining salvaged from a thrift store wool coat I’d bought for the rug project, but ultimately abandoned that plan because the lining was so old it was becoming brittle. Plus I needed a more rigid lining to keep the purse form in more of a, er, purse form.



The second visioning of the lining was to purchase a sufficient quantity of new lining material to create a sort of quilted box using thick felt for batting. I’d gone so far as to plot out a complex set of cut lines that would allow for fold lines along the sides.



The third and final visioning was the realization that I had a pair of old jeans on my stash pile, and they would serve the purpose beautifully. It offers a small amount of rigidity, is a sturdy lining for all the “stuff” that comes with being a girl that likes to shop at hardware stores, and also has pockets. Pockets are great to hold business cards, store rewards cards, pens, etc.



I added a vertical stitch line on one of the pockets to make it into two—one for cards, and its partner for pens.



The two long sides needed a frame or support, in addition to the handle. For this I chose a length of metal wall shelving support. There are two things I love about this particular solution. First, it comes with lots of holes that I can use to secure the frame to the purse. Second, it happens to be the exact width necessary to hold an adhesive-backed magnetic strip. I had hoped that this would keep the purse closed.



Now what to do about the handles? For this I chose two types of speaker cord, which I braided to form a decorative, yet strong handle. Speaker cord has a nice hand-feel, so was my first choice from the beginning, though I had more color choices if I’d looked beyond that category.

I used the heavier speaker cord as the main support, split the cord back 5" from the end, and stripped one of its pair to that point. The non-stripped cord fit snugly in a 5/32" cable crimp. I threaded it through the tie and brought it back into the tie, forming a loop. With that done, I added the additional two lengths of smaller-gauge wire, and wrapped them in a sort of braid around the main structural wire.



Unfortunately I didn’t care for the look of the raw exposed wire at the attachment points, so I made a quick run to Hancock for a wide black elastic. I like the resulting modification much better.

With that done, I turned my attention to attaching the handle to the bag. For this I used more denim scraps, threading them through the wire loop, and attaching both denim ends to the inside of the purse using a zig zag stitch.

If I have a blind spot with my sewing machine, it’s the need to drop the presser foot when I’m sewing thick layers. Since the thickness makes it appear that the foot is fully depressed, I sew and sew and sew, then can’t figure out why the bobbin-side of the fabric is a mess.



Dropping the presser foot solves this every time.

I sewed back over some of the more ragged areas of the zig-zag, but opted to leave the mess in place. If this were a tailored bag, I definitely would have “fixed” it, but given the rawness of the project, having a stitch mess is oddly suited.

With that done, I attached the supporting frame to the purse top, first using thick button thread to attach the ends through the frame’s built-in loops. Then used the hemp thread to sort of wrap and crochet the frame along the purse top.



While the frame is necessary, and wrapping it this way was necessary, the thickness of the hemp was just enough to prevent the weak magnet in the magnetic strip from working. I had anticipated this might be a problem, so I already had a solution in my hip pocket. And that was to use the Dritz traditional magnetic latch. I attached these to denim strips and secured them to the bag’s interior as before.



The last problem to solve was how to keep the purse sides pulled in. I tried a few different solutions, but they all either barely worked, or worked too well, preventing me from being able to open the purse fully. Ultimately I used some leftover elastic, which I attached to the center of each side at the top, then at the seam along the base. The pulling down of the side effectively pulls it in as well.



And that’s it. A feral purse ready to hit the streets.