Little Purses

I wanted a small purse for a gift but I got enthusiastic and ended up making four

They are about 4 1/2  " wide and were made from a Valori Wells pattern.  Here they are opened up, showing the three  pockets.  The paisley purse in the top left hand corner is the one I made carefully following the pattern, but after that I made some adjustments.

They are made by stacking up all the layers and then stitching and turning them out.  You have three pockets (each 2 pieces of fabric), an outside piece and a lining - eight pieces of fiddly curved layers with 1/4" seams which have to be juggled to be stacked up with the edges meeting accurately. That's hard.  So what I did was cut 5 1/2" strips of each fabric and then cut rectangular pieces deep enough to make each pocket..  It was only the outer piece of the purse with its iron on stiffening that I cut to the correct shape

You can see how I have stacked the pockets on the lining of the purse withoujt having to worry too much about matching edges - just get the pockets nicely spaced, then lay the outer piece of the purse face down on the pockets and stitch around the correct shape, leaving a space to turn out, trim and clip, then turn out.

I had trouble with the lower square corners so I made each piece a fraction longer so that I could put a curve on these lower corners. Great fun.  Sewing on the press studs was the hardest part.

Making these little purses reminded me of a slightly larger one I made in a class a few years ago. The challenge was to take a piece of self-patterned fabric, mark out the shape of a purse, then re-embroider the pattern with threads and beads.