Crochet Bridal Purse

I have crochet projects sprouting like weeds. I keep getting an idea and can't wait to start working on it to see it take shape. I have four bookmarks on the hook begun last week, am still working on the rainbow tote, have nearly a hundred bookmarks off the hook that need tails tucked and fringe or tassels attached as well as 1.5 sets of 4 coasters and a vase/lamp mat all patterned after the Navajo rug with lots of narrow stripes each having two tails each and all needing fringe.

Some of these are time sensitive. The bookmarks are for birthday presents for birthday's already gone by for family and friends in this area so i'd like to have them off the hook, tucked, blocked and dressed before I leave August 7.

The vase mat is a wedding gift for a niece getting married in two weeks. And the bridal purse seen at top is also for her and I just started it two days ago. It will be a small draw string pouch about six to eight inches tall that has a number of possible uses: to carry a tissue or lipstick or any small item hard to do without while wearing the wedding dress; to store wedding keepsakes in; or filled with something fragrant and stored with the wedding dress or keepsakes or in a lingerie drawer.

The stitch I'm using is simple and quick and it is progressing fast. It is a mesh made with three chains attached to the three chain loop below with a single crochet in the middle chain. On the first row the single crochet is worked in every third chain with three chains between. This mesh can be made with any odd number of chains between three and eleven. I suppose it could be done with any odd number go much higher than eleven and the holes would be too big to be useful. Tho I can almost envisage a light weight summer shawl done with a mesh as big as 22 chains. Possible variations are to replace the single crochet with a slip stitch or any of the other stitches from half double to double triple or with a picot which is a 3 or 5 chain with both ends in the same chain below making a tiny loop. By doing two 3 chain picots to either side of a 5 chain picot you get a fleur de lis. I seriously considered that but decided I needed to keep it simple since time is seriously constrained.

I'm working with pearle thread in bright white and will accent it with pearle variegated delft blues. I'm thinking a single row of a taller stitch about half way up, a row of triple crochet where the drawstring will be for threading a ribbon through and something on the rim.

I'm making this up as I go. I've been doing a lot of that lately.

BTW the backdrop for my picture is of a dishtowel made by my cousin's daughter on a loom that belonged to my Mom's aunt which would be this young lady's great-great-aunt. My mom had inherited it but when learning of here great-niece's interest several years ago she passed it on to her.

That came in the mail for Mom today. She said she'll not use it for a dishtowel but rather a table mat of some sort. It is two gorgeous. I took one look at it and am now craving to learn how to weave myself. But on a smaller scale--bookmarks and belts and small purses and wallets. I'd have no room to set up that huge loom the size of an upright piano so I'd want a table top one. But that's sometime in the future if ever. I wish now that I'd shown more interest in it all those years it was set up in Mom's bedroom when I was a teenager.