Pattern: Oak tree filet chart and purse

Crochet purse with a filet design of an oak tree

Welp, it’s officially gotten to the point that I feel so ashamed of how long I’ve let the blog languish that I avoid touching the blog. So, it’s time to re-work my expectations. I’m going to continue to use this space sporadically to post patterns that I’ve created, but I’m not going to try to keep up with journaling in any way. Suffice to say that I’ve still been creating, but the combination of work, new friends, and not-least-important an apartment with less natural light for photography means I’ve let documenting slip.

Another view of the purse

Today I intend to share a pattern that I worked up a few months ago. I had a bit of leftover yarn and wanted to make another filet crochet purse; I was looking for charts of trees online and couldn’t find anything I liked. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of gorgeous tree designs out there, but since I was limited to a couple dozen pixels on a side… anyway I ended up making my own. Without further ado, here’s an excel version, where the gray cells should be filled in and the white cells left open:

Chart: tree

For the purse, the general construction scheme I followed was the same as for the heart purse. Start by working a few rows flat of 29 hdc, with the number of rows dictated by how thick you want the purse to be. Then start working in the round, using this flat piece as a base, working 2hdc into each post at the ends of the base’s rows. When you’ve worked about 6 rows/2″ high of a bag, start in on the chart on both faces of the bag, with normal dc on the short sides between the charts. When you’ve finished the chart, add another row or two of open cells, then start working on the handle, by working a strip about 7 dc wide in the flat starting from one short side of the purse. Extend the handle until you like the length, then stitch it down to the far short side of the purse using slip stitches. Add a closure flap to one face of the bag, if you like, by (ch 3, turn, (dc, ch1) across, dc in 2nd-to-last dc of the row, skip a ch1 and tc in last dc of the row) to create a triangular flap that gets narrower each row. I made the very last row, when my flap had two square cells left in it, just a chain of about a dozen stitches to make a button loop. The button I made by wrapping a large stitch marker that I’ve never used in the yarn and stitching it down. Photo:

Detail of button and triangular flap.

Purse with hand for scale

I made this purse in sport-weight acrylic, and it’s quite long and rather narrow—it fits most hardback novels, but not easily. I made the handle super long, so if I wear it cross-body it falls to my calf, but I can trap the middle of the strap under the button flap and make it into a backpack. I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out, and definitely happy with the chart, which I hereby license you all to use however you see fit, not just in purses.