Quite a while ago, among the vintage bags we had gathered for our shop, I spotted a simple leather purse. It was in excellent condition, but by itself, it looked a bit boring. Different ideas on what to make of this bag went through my head, but eventually, I decided to make a crochet cover.
I wanted to make it colorful and modern, so I dived in my stash and came up with a series of colors in Greek cotton yarn. Then, I used a multicolor crochet pattern by Picot for the main body and started to work. I followed the form of the bag, with it’s envelope shape, but skipped a rectangular piece at the front. The reason for that was the central button closure. By laying fabric between the two button parts, even with a hole in the fabric in order to avoid the button, it made the whole area a bit bulky and hindered the button from working properly. So I skipped that part and created ‘cutouts’ showcasing the leather surface.
During this process, one worry was constantly on my mind: how to join the crochet piece with the leather effectively. My first thought was to make the cover in the form of a cozy that could be easily removed and washed. I quickly discovered that such a thing was not possible: I couldn’t find a way to make the cozy stable and not make the whole bag slip off your hands. But then I examined the bag a bit more closely and I got an idea! Each leather piece of the bag was joined together by stitches, whose one side was clearly visible on the front side. I checked to see if my tapestry needle could fit under each stitch, and after seeing that it did, it was pretty easy! I made one long crochet piece and then used sewing thread to sew the sides of the crocheted piece onto the leather stitching. This way, the cover gets stretched appropriately and fits the bag perfectly. Isn’t that cool? xD
And what is even cooler, I got to feature this bag (as the only vintage-handmade one) in our shop’s very first fashion Lookbook! It was a very exciting process, setting up a photoshoot and basically having fun with friends. 😀
P.S.: Yeap, that is the weather we have in Patras in November-December. The location is at the old port, just under our house and in front of a Chemical/Oil Products Tanker with the label TRF Bergen, which made wonder if it was about the Norwegian town, Bergen. (at the moment I am writing this, the tanker is in the area of Marshall Islands and is heading towards Philadelphia)
P.P.S.: All the pictures in the Lookbook (except for one) are taken with vintage Nikon film lens and a DSLR Nikon body.
Fun fact: I didn’t know what kind of colors my models were going to wear exactly – we had only discussed the overall style. They also hadn’t seen the products. It was really weird to discover that their colors matched perfectly with the bags and all the knitted and crocheted accessories we had at hand! That was a happy accident that doesn’t happen often!
