What do you give as a thank you gift to people for opening their home and welcoming you for a week and treating you like family. Simple. Give them something from the heart made with the hands.

Yup, I made change purses with the bands from my last post. I’ve actually wanted to do an inkle change purse since I first learned how to weave inkle. The original idea and inspiration came from a great tutorial on Curious Weaver. My purses ended up being slightly different than her lovely purse, however. I sewed my bands vertically to minimize the amount of cutting and joined them by hand to be able to hide the join stitches.

I used a blanket stitch to close the side seams.

The purses are lined with cotton batik, which in hindsight I should have cut on the bias to allow for give inside the purse.

My assembly method more closely follows the tutorial from U-Handbag. Both tutorials miter the corners to give a flat bottom and use a glue-in frame. My purse frames are the sew-in type, stitched with nylon beading cord (think fishing line).

The first purse ended up being a tricky little project at times. There were some lessons learned:
-Very fuzzy yarn is not good for inkle weaving. You WILL end up cutting it out.
-Darker, thicker, contrasting yarn is a good idea for doing pick-up weaving when you are sleepy- easier on the eyes.
-Once you get the rhythm of pick-up it goes faster than you think it will. It can take a while to get a rhythm.
-Measuring accurately prevents a lot of headaches.
-The trick to sew-in purse frames: the needle needs to be inserted at an angle.

Now that I know what the heck I’m doing, I’ll definitely be making one of these again for myself. The bottom of my pocketbook is always full of change that I can never seem to find when I’m ready to pay for something…

I have one more gift to make, which hopefully, I’ll be able to get to this week, between the diaper changes and feedings of one and the potty training of the other. Stay tuned.

warp, weave, be happy!

~Jennifer