Folded Rectangle Knit Purse | Free Pattern + Step-by-Step Workshop for Beginners (DIY Tutorial)

Hey everyone, it's Deja with Knit and Crochet Ever After, and today we are making this super, super, super beginner knit purse. This is one of my forever free patterns. If you're new to my channel, welcome. I am Deja. I do knit and crochet tutorials and patterns and giveaways and all kinds of stuff. I call this a forever free pattern because I have some videos that you'll find where it was a limited free. Free time, so limited limited time free. I can never say that right But I give it away for a limited time And it varies and then after that limited time it goes to my pattern shop and then you have to pay to get that pattern so Why I'm telling you this, make sure that you're liking and subscribing and hitting the notification bell so that you can get those limited time free patterns Along with the forever free patterns like this one So this is the folded rectangle purse. I know, you're like, rectangle? No, that's not a rectangle. It used to be. That's why this is a super beginner project because all we're doing is creating one big rectangle and a little I-cord, which I'm gonna do a tutorial in this video on, but you definitely don't have to do the I-cord if you're not ready or don't want to It's pretty simple though, so I think you'll like it. But you can always use rope, leather, just knit a little strap, you know a little garter stitch strap, because that's all we're doing for this pattern is garter stitch. It's just knitting every single row, big rectangle that we're going to fold and seam The yarn that I used for this was from my Knitcrate subscription They said it's a DK weight. I think it's more worsted weight. It's pretty Um, thick and squishy, so I would go if you're going to be matching my gauge, but I'm going to explain how you don't have to even do gauge, which makes it even more beginner, or even like you can just totally customize it, which I'll talk about near the end of the video with different colors, how you can just make it your own But if you want to make it the exact same size as what you see here you'll want to match gauge that's in the pattern and I would pick more of a worsted weight. I said this was a DK and I said DK in the pattern but I'm going to tell you in the video it's probably closer to worsted so get with that if your gauge is not quite meshing. But I'm really liking this yarn. This is a wool yarn. I would recommend a dense kind of yarn. So wool, if you have a wool allergy I would do a very dense acrylic. So like a Red Heart Super Saver. One of those where you're like oh, this is not very soft Get one of those because that'll make a better purse than getting like a Vanna's Choice or a Caron Simply Soft So stick with the nice depth dense yarn. I'll put a link in the description for my Knit Crate subscription if you've never checked it out and then also for the pattern of course. So get that downloaded and we're going to start working on this guy So you're about to see this in rectangular form in just a second and I'll explain everything. The rectangle portion we'll talk about making it different sizes and how you don't have to get gauge but you're basically going to be doing Knit stitch every single row. It's the simplest thing ever. You can change, you can change this up to any stitch pattern you can think of once you understand the rectangle and how it's put together. So really get creative with it. But let's go show you the rectangle and more information. Okay, so to make our purse, all you need to make is a rectangle. That is it. And a I-cord, which we'll go over. That's not hard at all either. But we're just doing garter stitch for a long time. This is a great beginner project. If you really want to practice garter stitch and keeping edges nice, this yarn, I love this yarn, it's from Knit Crate, and it Just lays well. It lays so well. I did not block this at all, and you can see how nice the edges are. It doesn't have a lot of variation in it, so it just stays consistent throughout. If you're using thick and thin yarn, that could be a problem, so try to get a yarn that has a consistent thickness. Yeah, I had to think about what I just said because I'm like, was that correct? So, For the rectangle, you can follow the pattern if you like making gauge. I don't, so I encourage you to not follow the pattern. This is a super simple customizable rectangle. You're basically making three like perfect and nothing's perfect. So three squares, close as you can get it. See if I can even turn this into three squares. By the end of the video, I might be able to. So it's really three squares. As a rectangle. So what you need to do, you can cast on what I said, 36 stitches, or you can cast on something similar. If your yarn is a little thinner, make it a bigger cast on, a little thicker, make it a little smaller, if you want kind of the same size as what I have. But for me, for this one, it's eight inches wide, pretty close, very close to eight inches. So to make those three squares, I have to multiply it by three. To say that I need 24 inches of length. So again, start stitching. Knit, stitch, knit, stitch, knit, stitch. Get it to maybe like this high up, like this big of a chunk. Then measure across. Get it, you know, nice and flat on your...whatever. I use circular needles so that I can get it nice and flat. Measure across whatever you have, times it by three, and make your rectangle that long. So as you're going and you get like maybe about here, start measuring as you're going. Kind of maybe use some gauge. Go, hey, it takes me like two, four rows to get an inch, so now I need... Two more inches, so I need eight more rows, and kind of pay attention like that, so that when you get close, right before that inch mark, you're going to bind off nice and not too loose, not too tight, just to make it nice, so that you have that really good rectangle. If it's not perfect, don't worry. You can fudge it when you're sewing it together, because I made another one in different colors and I was a little bit off, but it was fine when I sewed it. Once you sew it, it's all good. So make your rectangle. I'm going to show you how to make an I-cord, and then we're going to come back and put it all together. So let's go make the I-cord. Okay, so to make our I-cord, we're going to start with two strands of yarn, and you can adjust this. You can do three, four, one, whatever you want. To change the thickness of the I-cord, this is pretty thick yarn, so I'm going to do two strands. And we're going to do a long-tail cast-on of four stitches, so just make sure you have enough of a tail. That should be plenty. And then we're using either circular needles, which I'm just using the same needles that I did the body of the bag with, or straight needles, so same size needles is what we made the bag with. And we're going to do a long-tail cast-on. So we've got one, two, three, and four, and then we're ready to start our I-cord. Keep your tail, make sure you have enough to weave into the bag. So we're going to use this to attach it to the bag. So make sure it's a little bit longer so that you can use it easily. So, to make an I-cord, we're basically just doing I'm going to knit stitch like over and over again in rows, except there's a little change. We're not going to turn at the end of the rows, so let's just start with row round one. It's going to be a total of 30 altogether, but you're just going to knit your four stitches. Then at the end of the row, you are not going to turn like you normally would. You're going to leave your stitches where they are and move your needle. So I'm going to push my needle through. And pull through to the other needle so that I am ready to go for row round two. I call it row round because these are going to get kind of, they're going to start working, they're not going to work on the round, they're going, it's going to turn roundular, circular shape when we go. So our yarn is, tail is on the left. We're needles pointing to the right so we're going to do that first stitch and we're going to pull that yarn over to do that first stitch and by pulling that over it will force your stitches together into a tube. So we're gonna do four stitches again so that's our second row round. Then again, and you can kind of pull on it as you're going, you'll see it kind of scrunched together. So again, I drop my needle, I pull through, come back to the right side from my yarn on the left. You can see I kind of just push it down so I can get it over to where I'm going to be working it, and I grab that. I make it a little bit tighter than normal just to pull that yarn all the way over so that it will get that rounded shape that I want in the I-cord. So again you can kind of pull on it and once you get a couple rounds in it starts to take shape better. The first couple rounds don't look like much but you're going to do 30 of these so you're just going to keep pushing it over starting back from the right side pulling that yarn over from the left. And working those four stitches. And you're going to do that for 30 rounds, or rows, whichever you want to call it, and you'll see as I pull it, it comes together in the back, so it looks like one full tube. So I'm going to go ahead and work the 30 rounds, and come back and show you what it looks like, and then we'll construct the whole thing. Okay, I've done 29 rounds, rows, whatever you want to call them, So you can see it totally forms up like a tube. I'm going to... Bind off now. So I'm gonna just do kind of one last row round. So again pulling it through and I'll do it pretty tight. Like I don't need a loose bind off. This isn't meant to like be worn or anything. So pull them nice and tight as you're doing them. So it'll keep it closed at the end. You can kind of make up for it when you're also sewing it to the bag. So it's not a huge deal. Then we will fasten off. With a good size tail again so we can have that other end nice and long to attach it. There's good. Then we're going to go grab the bag and put it all together. Our garter. Stitch, rectangle's done, our I-cord is done, and now we're ready to put this guy together. So we're just gonna do three simple folds to get this looking like a purse. We're gonna start on the opposite ends of the rectangles, and we're gonna fold them over like triangles. Little 45 degree angle action going on afterwards. So once again, grab one corner, bring it down. Make a little triangle, pat it nice and nice, and then grab the other end and go the opposite way. Go up, pat it nice and nice, and then we'll have a little square right in the middle. Now we want to create the actual bag, and I always forget which way to go, because you're Do it on the diagonal. So I don't remember if I need to fold it on this diagonal or if I need to fold it on this diagonal. But how I can tell is I start to do it and I go, that doesn't look like a bag, that looks like a parallelogram or something. So I stop and I go in the opposite diagonal. So when I do the opposite diagonal, all of a sudden, I have a purse, hooray. So that was the right way. So, I have two seams right here and then one on the opposite side right there, so when you flip it it's like the exact same seam. We are going to mattress stitch that. Don't whip stitch, it gets bulky and weird, like bunches up. You've got to mattress stitch it. So whether you want to start from the corner and work your way out or start from here and work your way in, whatever you prefer. So you're going to mattress seam stitch whatever these two Seams together, then you're going to have your whole purse pretty much done. Last but not least, take your I-cord, your long tails, and just run them through the corner here a couple of times. I kind of go in and out, like through here and then back through the... The I-cord back again and then I weave it into the I-cord so you don't have to mess with weaving it into here you just shove it right down the middle and pull it through and it's great it totally works. So I'm going to go put this sucker together and I'm going to come back and show you what it looks like. Okay so that is the rectangle folded rectangle purse. This is a finished product of course you've seen it already. I wanted to talk about Making it your own with color changes because I've got one that I made up and you'll also notice it's a little bit bigger so you can customize that size as well as I told you. This is an 8 inch wide and this is a 10 inch wide. It really kind of ballooned out a little because this is a more drapey yarn. This is a more dense yarn so you can see kind of the difference in that as well. It'll give you more of a drape and a longer kind of bag to it but the important thing that I wanted to point out was that I did color changes on this one. I actually did four color changes. This was from my KnitCrate as well. This was the one where they gave me four different color yarns and so I wanted to use all the yarns in one project and this is still the same thing. It's still one rectangle and it's just color blocked with four different colors. So it started with like one of the creams and then it came around to the green, then Then it came around to the other cream and then it went to the blue. And then you just seam it together and you get this cool effect. And they were all, they were all like 36 rows from what this was. So I made them all the exact same row count so that the seams would match up like that. So you can definitely change colors. One important thing to. Remember though, is that, because I really, when I first was designing, I was like, I want to put like a million different stripes and it will look really cool with it all kind of put together. However... Part of your rectangle is not seamed and your edges are visible. So you want to be careful with your edges because they will be not sewn in in certain areas. But if you're color changing, you can't run your tails along your edge. You have to weave them in because you will see them. So that's one thing to think about. When you're doing the color changes, you may not want to do too many, but if you are adventurous, I would love to see one with tons of color changes. Please tag me on Instagram if you make one. I want to see what it looks like, or Facebook, wherever. Just, I would love to see somebody really do a ton of different color changes and weave in all the ends. You could also do... Color changing yarn, super simple, you know, only two ends to weave in, so that's another option for you, but you can see that with that seam, you get kind of a different effect because on this one, it looks like it's kind of one piece, you know, just one seam coming down, but when you see the different colors, it almost looks like as if you're seaming it here and seaming it here and seaming it there, like. Tons of different seams. It looks much more complicated than it is, but it's just the same exact thing. It's one rectangle folded up in a seam. So you can really get creative. You can also see that my i-cord, I did a four strand and I did all the different four colors of this. These are slightly different. It's different, you can see a different color that it was. But the I-cords, they have, this is a two-strand I-cord and this is a four-strand, so you can see the difference in thickness. This yarn is, I think it's thinner than this yarn. You can kind of see like the density of it. It's just, I think this is way more squishier. I like this yarn a lot. But you can really customize how you want this purse. So I would love to see what you guys are making when you're trying out this bag and making your own. Please tag me on Instagram and Facebook with your pictures. I love to love on those posts. If you like free patterns, make sure that you're liking and subscribing and hitting the notification bell. I am Deja with Knit and Crochet Ever After and thank you for watching.