Good morning everyone!

I’m back to talk about the July Little Box of Crochet project…a sweet clutch!

Let’s see what we’ve got.

And if we open it up, we see…

A very lovely postcard with birds. I adore birds, so I think I’ll hang this up in my cube.

And then…

You get three pretty skeins of yarn, along with a stamp and stitch marker. I have to admit that the idea of making a light-colored bag gave me pause – I tend to shop for darker colors when I purchase a bag.  But you will be happy to know that this yarn is a washable cotton/acrylic blend. Phew.

Let’s see how it worked up!

SO- confession.  While the actual pattern was pretty easy to follow, I had some very obvious tension issues, as you can see from my photo.  At the bottom of the clutch, I was stitching as tightly as I could for whatever reason. You can see my stitches getting more relaxed around the body of the bag.  Then by the time I got to the flap, my stitches morphed into, “I’M FREEEEEEEEEEEE, LET’S TAKE UP AS MUCH SPACE AS I CAN.”  I actually had to modify the pattern by the time I got to the flap because my tension was so off – otherwise, the flap wouldn’t have fit well.  You can see that the flap is a little too large on the right-sided, so it looks a little wonky.  Arrrgh! But it’s all part of the learning process, as this is my first bag I’ve crocheted.

The other pattern modification I did was add a strap to the bag.  I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve carried a clutch, and  I knew I’d use the bag more if I added a strap.  The bag’s future owner, my mom, doesn’t really own any clutches either, so I think this hack worked pretty well.  It would have worked better had my tension not been all over the place.

But despite my tension issues, I’m pretty pleased with the overall look of the bag.

Yeah, I know my outfit doesn’t really match this bag, BUT I was already dressed up for work, and I just wanted to get the photos for this post out of the way.

Ignore the red ball at the top of my bookshelf.  This is my dog’s little red ball and it turns him into a total psycho (hence why we have it on the bookshelf.)

I’m glad another project has been completed!  On to the next box!