a journey in free form crochet

It's been waaaaayyy too long since I posted so I thought I'd start with a project I'm doing for myself...a crocheted free form felted purse!

I'm still getting compliments on my small green/brown felted purse I made a few yrs ago as well as my Flame purse (I designed and felted it a few yrs ago for a design contest Elann yarns was having and unfortunately, I missed the deadline). Both purses are fairly small and now that I have a cell phone and iPod, they are really just too small.

That being said, I decided to make myself a larger one. I had a skein each of off white and blue sport wool yarn from Briggs and Little. I decided a beach / Ocean purse was what it wanted to be.

Here you can see the start of it.
Here's a close up of the detail on the "Beach" part of the bottom.

Here it is nearing completion. I designed it to have a slanted opening so that (hopefully) the taller side will be a "flap" of sorts....

I have now run out of blue and am contemplating where to take it next. I think I need to buy more blue and make it taller. After all I don't want one side to be so short that everything falls out...Being free form, it is really hard to tell how it will behave when felted.

Now for some musings.... the handles.... maybe dye some of the left over off white a green and make the handle(s) to look like seaweed? Or colorful and look like coral?....(I have some Koolaid in nice bright colors)...short handle(s) or long to sling over my shoulder?... I've never felted such a large free form piece before, so worried that it had to be big enough to start so I wouldn't end up with a change purse! lol. Now my concern is that I'll end up with a TOTE bag! LOL! Here's the small change purse I experimented with.

Before felting:

And after felting:
I just need to line it and add some sort of closure.

I deliberately made it a bit lacy in places so that the watery cloth I picked for the liner would show through. Here are some options I'm considering...


Once it's ready to felt, I'll look through my beads, shells, etc to see what, if any, I'd like to use. I'll also decide whether to add them pre or post felting, depending on the look I want and what's being added.

I'm off to ponder my purse! I'll keep you updated on my progress:0)