Regency: The Pineapple Reticule

Here is the silliest thing I've ever made: a pineapple reticule! 

A few weeks ago I learned that pineapple reticules were a thing - at least one of them, that I know of. This knit pineapple purse is housed in the Kyoto Costume Institute’s 1800-1810 collection (as featured on JaneAusten.co.uk) 

The extant purse is knit in silk, in several shades of yellow and green.  The blog linked above states that pineapples and other tropical fruit were very much en vogue during the early regency, but sadly, I cannot find any other examples of period fruit-like knit or fabric objects online. But this one example is enough for me! 

There are lots of patterns for similar knit reticules on Ravelry and Etsy. I am not a knitter - I crochet (crocodile stitch, maybe?), but I didn’t happen to have any yellow or green yarn sitting around. What I did have was a three yard length of 6” wide yellow poly satin fabric that I wasn’t doing anything with, so I decided to sew a little pineapple bag. 

For the body, I sewed four 6" wide strips of satin together to make a large rectangle, then pintucked the whole thing on the bias, and sewed the result into a tube. The lining is yellow cotton from an old sheet I had sitting around to make mock-ups with. 

The  “leaves” are big triangles attached to the top edge of the tube, and I ran a drawstring (pale gold ribbon) around the top of the bag just beneath the leaves on the inside of the bag so that they'd stand up when the bag is closed.  I didn’t have anything green to use for the leaves, so I cut off part of the yellow piece and dyed it green with Rit’s Dyemore for synthetics in “peacock green,” which yielded this lovely leaf green color: 

The leaves being put together, and the yellow cotton lining: 

And here's the round, flat bottom of the bag, also green. The little covered button on the bottom is just for fun, and just because I love covered buttons:

Y'all, I CANNOT stop giggling at this thing.  It's so silly!  This is officially the silliest thing I've ever made, and it pleases my heart.  HEE HEE HEE.