The coin purses are now labelled and ready to go. I made enough for family in Manila and here’s a photo of some of the purses. Two are already on their way to Amsterdam for my husband’s grandchildren.
The funny farm is ready!
All these purses are worked in acrylic yarn of worsted weight although some feel like they are fingering weight yarn. In these cases I usually work with two hook sizes, aluminum 3/0 (2.2mm) and 4/0 (2.5mm). For closure, I just use velcro.
A velcro for enclosure.
The only problem with velcro and yarn is that the velcro can felt the yarn through use. To minimize this problem, a fabric backing can be sewn around the area where the velcro will be sewn on or – as in my case – one can just try to use a small amount of velcro that fit each other and to apply the hooked portion of the velcro in that part of the crocheted item where there is less tendency to stick to other bare part of the crochet. For the purse, the hooked part of the velcro is sewn onto the body of the purse.
Apart from these coin purses, I plan to send other stuff to family in Manila. I have been trying to design some hairbands the past several weeks now and last night I thought about using acrylic yarn instead of thread.
Duplet crochet fashion magazine in Russian language.
This issue 76 of Duplet magazine has Irish crochet patterns and the leaves caught my attention. All worked in thread and by crocheting over padding yarn, I didn’t follow the patterns exactly but rather just took the general idea of how the leaves were made.
I stuck with the basic leaf and made them in two sizes – the larger one starts with 14+1 chains and the smaller one starts with 8+1 chains. The corrugated surface of the leaf comes from back-loop single crochet.
A page from Duplet Issue 76 showing Irish crochet patterns in symbol and Russian language.
I arranged the leaves into the desired layout and then sewed them together at the back. It is this process of arranging and sewing that is the most difficult. The leaves need to be arranged in such a way that they will keep their shape when worn – that is, when they get stretched. The leaves also need to be sewn in such a way that they get reinforced.
The garter for the hairband is this black 1 inch wide garter. I got this garter especially for the purpose of making hairbands.
I used a 1 inch wide garter for the hairband.
Trying on the hairband it seems to work well. The typical problem with crocheted hairbands is that they fold near the back of the head under the hair or near the ears. They also tend to stretch and loose their shape and elasticity. Garters can also look unsightly.
The leaves and garter work well for hairband.
Anyway, I really like how the acrylic yarn leaves turned out. I tried them on as a scarf and it feels soft and warm around the neck, perhaps better if worked in wool or mohair. The crocheted leaves also have a shape that is quite easy to work with when joining together, and they have a very attractive texture.
I guess acrylic yarn is also a good way to experiment with new stitches, motifs and techniques. They are easy to work with, don’t demand too much detail like thread, and they’re inexpensive. They also seem to be a good substitute for thread in certain Irish crochet patterns that exploit bulk and padding rather than fine detail.
I’m not yet ready to turn back to thread at the moment so I think I will spend a bit more time working in yarn and wool.
