One Skein Felted Purse - Tulip

I am officially in love with felting projects, and especially this new one that I tried. I got a couple of knitting books with projects that take one skein of yarn - I wanted to use up some of my stash and make some quick projects. This purse looked like a fun little project, plus I want to make a few items to put in the Silent Auction for Comitatus in November (never hurts to start working on them early!), so I thought this project would be perfect to make a little purse to put in the auction.

I used the same pink that I had used for my sister's and niece's clogs since I had two whole balls of yarn left (this project is knitted with two strands and the "one skein" used in the book had a lot more yardage than one of these, so I did end up using almost all of two balls of this yarn, but that's perfectly okay with me).

Here are the specs:
Pattern: One-Skein Felted Purse from One-Skein Wonders
Yarn: KnitPicks Wool of the Andes (100% Peruvian Highland Wool) in Tulip
Needles: Size 11 circular (24"); changed to straight needles for handle
Time taken: 2 days

So here is the purse, finished but before felting. (Yes the handle is supposed to be twisted - it gives it a little more thickness when felted.)



And here's the purse after felting.


It's just a small purse, but I think it's incredibly cute! I've quite fallen in love with it and I think I'm going to have to make a couple more of these. I can use the blue that I have left from my clogs to make one for me. Jarrett asked if I'd make one for his grandmother, so I think I'll do that in the snickerdoodle. Then I have the green left over from Mary's scarf, but with that I think I'll do something a bit different and pair the green with the skein of daffodil that I have (since it's knitted with two strands) and do a two-color effect. And I should have some of the purple left as well. And if I practice with needle felting, I could add some designs to it (like an initial or something of that sort). There are so many possibilities with this one project! One thing I especially like about this purse is that the bottom is knitted flat and then I picked up stitches around the edges and knitted the sides in the round. What does that mean? No seaming!

The purse is drying now (I straighted up the handle from what it's shown like in this picture, so it should dry a lot better), so it should be ready in a couple of days. The book suggests adding a snap closure to it, so I'm going to go look at Hobby Lobby to see what kinds of accessories they have and perhaps pick something up. But the purse is small enough that it might not need any type of closure.