“All young ladies accomplished!…They all paint tables, cover skreens, and net purses…I scarcely know any one who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being informed that she was very accomplished.”
Pride and Prejudice
During the Regency period, sisters and friends knit small bags known as “Sovereign Purses” to exchange as gifts. After seeing them in Candice Hern’s wonderful Regency collection, I was inspired to replicate something Jane Austen might have made for her sister, Cassandra.
Keeping with the historical feel, I knit one bag in linen and the other in silk. To give these purses a modern practicality, since the originals were sized only to hold a few coins, my versions are large enough for an evening out or as a lovely gift bag.
This pattern was designed by Elizabeth Boyle and originally offered by Debbie Macomber’s A Good Yarn Shop. It can be printed from their website in two formats: Microsoft Word and PDF.
(Requires the free Acrobat Reader to open)
Elizabeth Boyle is the author of seventeen bestselling historical romances, including her recent New York Times bestseller, Mad About the Duke. Elizabeth has won the RITA and numerous other writing awards, including
Romantic Times’s Career Achievement Award. She claims she’s too young for such an honor, until she realizes she’s been writing for nearly twenty years and knitting for over forty. When she isn’t writing, she’s chasing her two heroes-in-training around, knitting and blogging obsessively, stashing yarn, and trying her husband’s patience with a myriad of excuses as to why the laundry never quite gets caught up.
You can find Elizabeth on Ravelry as elizbo, and at her websites, elizabethboyle.com, and knitthestash.blogspot.com
Reticules and patterns are available in our costume section. Visit our giftshop and escape into the world of Jane Austen.
