Hello Kitty bag

A year ago I would not have even dreamed of crocheting anything and did not even want to. I am very impatient, so I want to see results immediately and crocheting takes time. But then I won the box of doilies from an auction and my creative juices got the better of me. I started to search ideas for using the doilies in craft projects. I found very nice and inspiring crocheting blogs and many Flickr groups full of crocheted goodness. Then I realized that my doilies were not enough, I wanted something else. I was especially smitten by some really cute Hello Kitty accessories and I wanted to make those for Emma. After a long search I finally found what I was looking for and ordered a crafts book called Hello Kitty Pompom and Knit Goods  from eBay, bought some yarn from a Finnish yarn shop, Lankaidea, and got to work.

It took me almost three months to finish this one, since I only made a few squares here and then, and never seemed to have the time to actually concentrate on this. Then one day I realized that I had more than enough Hello Kitty squares ready and it was time to assemble the bag.

This is the end result. I am very happy and proud that I managed to make this. My friends couldn't believe that it was handmade and by me :) The lining and handles are my own design, since I did not like the original design.

The yarn I used is Mandarin Petit (from Sandnes), colours 1001 white, 2004 yellow, 4505 pink and 4301 light pink. The lining is light pink flannel, leftovers from a night gown I made for Emma.

Here is a close up of a Kitty square:

Since I had more squares than I needed for the bag, I decided to make some coin purses as well. A while ago I ordered some zippers from an Etsy seller and even though the colours are lovely, I had a little mishap with unit conversions. I ordered zippers that were too short to use in any of my clothes-making projects. After making these two coin purses, I only have 48 short zippers left... Any ideas what to make with those?