Crochet - Boutique Bag

You know how most people on Pinterest have a crafty board, usually titled "things to try", or "I must learn how to do this".  Well I have one of those very same boards, only I actually want to TRY the things I put in there.  Like yesterday, I saw a cute pattern for a small crocheted clutch bag and I decided to see if I could crack one out last night using an "I" hook at 5 count soft bulky yarn.  This is what I came up with:

Spring Boutique Bag - inspired by Pinterest and Sara

and here's the back (without the flower)

I got the pattern over at the blog Tangled Happy by Sara.  She has a lovely free pattern, and a couple of variations you could try on the same bag.  Here is a picture of her three different purses entitled the "Granny Stripe", the "Alligator", and the "Strappy" Boutique Bags, (click the link above to the directions).

Photo by Sara at Tangled Happy blog

When I first started making this pattern, I realized that the bottom of the bag is left open and you whip stitch it together at the end to seal it up.  I thought I would rather make the bag closed to start with, so instead of chaining 51 to start this purse, I chained only half of that (26). Then I SC in the 2nd chain from the hook and the rest of the ch all the way back to the start.  From there I went around the back of the original chain and started the pattern in the round right away.  This made it so the first row of shells sprouted up in a "V" shape from both the front and the back of the original line and thus the bottom of the purse was sealed off.  Here is a pic of the shells coming out from both sides of the original chain and row of SC (if that helps).

What it looks like to make this bag starting from a sealed bottom of the purse

I still had 17 shell stitches per row, everything else on the pattern I did the same.  I ended up doing an extra row of the shell stitches to make 9 rows, then followed the instructions for the sideways handle. 

I added my own flower from a book I have, and added a small pearl accent. I did a blind stitch very carefully to attach the flower to the purse (going in between the thick yard so no one could see it from the front OR from the inside.  I think this turned out pretty cute!  I read on the Tangled Happy site that some people used this for I phones, Nintendo DS's, and other small electronics.  This is small enough to hold your phone and a set of keys, a cute little make up bad, or even a small purse for a little girl.  I'd like to still try it in a number of cute colors.  Stay tuned.  :)