My husband and I visited Hampton Court palace on Sunday and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. My handbag of choice for the day was my Larger Than Life crochet handbag. Looking back at the photos of the day I realised, once again, what a thing of beauty it is. Seriously. I’m not even afraid of sounding vain because I’m just totally in love with my crochet handbag.

In this photo I’m wearing a Green Velvet Travelling Cloak, courtesy of Hampton Court Palace. Its soooo much fun and it really gets you into the spirit of (Tudor) things, but what stands out in this photo, is the handbag.

Now that I’ve whet your appetite, you probably want to know a bit more about this bag. It’s official name is the Larger Than Life Bag by Cecily Keim. Mine is done in Rowan Handknit cotton, the blocks are “Willow” from Jan Eaton’s book 200 Crochet Blocks, and instructions for the construction of the bag, as well as the Willow pattern, is published in the Interweave Crochet magazine – Spring 2007. You can see more of these Larger Than Life bags in the Flickr group.

I loved, loved, loved crocheting the blocks and playing with the colour combinations. I was very scared of the sewing involved in turning the crochet blocks into a proper handbag. Luckily I have an amazing husband who helped me every step of the way. We finished the bag on 7 March 2010 and I couldn’t be prouder.

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If you want to make a crochet statement and scarfs are not doing it for you anymore, have a go at this bag. You can’t go wrong!