WIP Wednesday: Two Purses

I've mentioned before that I'm still new to crocheting and occasionally have a hard time reading and understanding patterns.  I found the pattern to the Over the Shoulder Mini Purse and decided to give it a try since I've never done anything using the basketweave technique.  I should probably stop trying out new patterns late at night because I got myself so confused.  Eventually, I just decided to have each row be the opposite of the row before it.  So if I did a Front Post Double Crochet in the previous row, the next row I would use a Back Post Double Crochet.  Once the body of the purse was done I just quickly crocheted a strap that I will eventually sew into the purse. Later on I will also be putting a lining inside the purse but that will have to wait.  Too many other things to do. So I guess if I had to name this purse I would call it "The Happy Accident Purse".  Not exactly what I set out to make but it still came out decent looking.

So the day after I made "The Happy Accident Purse" I decided to go back and read the original pattern.  Suddenly my brain started to work and it made much more sense to me.  Since I still had quite a bit of Bernat cotton yarn left I decided to give that purse another try.  Now I will say I still was not able to follow the pattern perfectly.  I somehow got off on how many stitches there should be in Row 2 so I did just kind of fudge a bit to get where I was supposed to be.  However, this attempt is definitely closer to the original pattern.  I still need to make a strap for it though.

So I guess the moral of the story is if you already have a tough time reading patterns you might not want to start a new project late at night when your brain is ready for bed.  On the other hand, if you do this you might come up with something cool on your own.