Time me

 The census on my floor was really down all week so I enjoyed a few days on call and cranked out a new bead knitted purse.  I have quite a few BagLady purse frames I snapped up on clearance years ago.

 These beads started life as a curtain tieback I purchased on clearance at Walmart about a thousand years ago.  It was a Trading Spaces decorating accessory and they were strung onto wire and the wire braided.  I would never have used it as a tieback but just loved the colors so I pulled the wire out and strung the beads onto nylon thread to be used for bead knitting.

I know I've mentioned before that transferring the beads from the nylon thread to the perle cotton is the worst part.  You tie a knot in the nylon and tighten it around the end of your perle cotton and then slide the beads onto the thread.  If the beads are on the smaller side, you hit some tight ones every now and then and you get stuck or the thread can snap.  I've even cut my hands on the nylon from pulling.  It is worse than any nasty paper cut I've ever had.  The end of the perle cotton also becomes worn and frayed from all the sliding and needs to be trimmed as you go.  Here is my little dish of snipped nylon and perle cotton thread and beads that didn't make the cut.

I bought some gold satiny fabric, probably acetate, years ago at a garage sale for a quarter and actually liked the darker wrong side better for this project.  I traced around the finished knitted piece and cut this fabric out about 1/2" wider on all sides.  I  machine stitched up the sides, turned under the edges and pinned it to the knitting after it was sewn to the purse frame.

The lining was hand stitched to the knitting and was probably the fussiest part of the whole ordeal.  This would have worked much better with a curved/upholstery needle and I could have sworn I had a few but do you think I could find them?  I'll have to keep my eye open for some.

You can't really see the design of the purse but the increases look like petals.  I wish there was more contrast between the background thread and the beads but if I used a darker color, the greens would be lost.  I am pleased with how it turned out and I still can't believe I cranked it out in less than a week!  I still have plenty of the bead mixture left over.