Pop Topping It

I have a minor pop top purse obsession. It started almost two years ago when I laid my eyes on these awesome bags by Escama. I had never heard of them but it was love at first sight. I just had to have one (or several). But because I am cheap thrifty, I couldn’t possibly spend $200 for a purse. So, I reverse-engineered it instead. I’m crafty like that. It took a while though as I am not a crocheter and after scouring the internet for weeks I figured out that these beauties were crocheted. It took even longer to collect enough pop tops to make a purse but many of my family, friends and colleagues pitched in and drank a lot of beer soda in order to help my effort. My first pop top purse was finally ready this past March. It’s a tote really (12x15 inches) and it took about 2000 pop-tops and 9 months of heavy drinking and reverse engineering to make . Here it is:

   

I love that purse. I wore it non-stop for five months, however, due to a crucial production error, the purse started disintegrating. In deciding what thread to use for it, I had picked cotton because it’s natural but that turned out to be a bad idea as the cotton thread couldn’t stand up to the intense wear and tear I subjected that purse to, especially around the edges and the handles. So the tote will need to be redone but I learned my lesson – use synthetic thread!

As I was still working on the first purse I realized that, while I love large totes, they are just too big for some occasions. So, I started thinking about a smaller purse that would fit just my wallet, phone, point-and-shoot camera and keys. After the first purse was done, I continued collecting pop tops and soon I had enough. I was itching to make it but had to wait for the two moves and the FSOT to pass. Which brings us to last week when I finally sat down and made pop top purse #2.  It took about 1300 pop-tops to make. It measures 7x9 inches and still needs to be lined but that’s not preventing me from using it. And, yes, I did use synthetic thread for this one.