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Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Guest post: Tacky purse of spaciousness +3.

Guest post today, from the daughter of our resident craftster~

Quite a while ago, my mother made me a purse. It was a fine, simple thing, which suffered only from a slight lack of space and pockets. Not a problem at the time, but these days I have found myself in need of such things. This is my first nearly-solo sewing project, (my dearest mother did the first corner-turn on the bottom, and invisibly stitched up my last open seam with her voodoo magic.) and hopefully the first of many.
Anyhow, on to the purse.

No pattern was used because I have a severe neurosis regarding them. I'll get over it eventually...



The fabric was something that caught my eye on a store shelf and which, at the time, I had absolutely no use for. Eventually I decided to buy three metres anyway, just in case. Lucky thing too, since it was gone the next day. It is stiff and sturdy, but surprisingly light and easy to stitch through. Perfect for an amateur such as myself.











As you can see, I like to label things clearly. Thank heavens that charcoal washes off...

















I tried to match up the patterns as best I could. I think it produces a neat effect. Sewing the pockets on was much easier than I had expected. (Even if most of them ended up being a touch crooked..)














This phone-pocket will be modified to include a snap, since I am paranoid. And yes, the pattern is upside-down on purpose.
















The lining fabric was a little bit harder to work with. Quite slippery and prone to sprouting odd little threads at the edges.













I was initially going to sew the lining and the inside pockets in the same fabric, but I realised as I handled the bolt that it generates more static electricity than I would be comfortable stowing my electronic devices around, so the less contact the better.














Assembled, but not ironed. And with a single open seam for flipping.














Fully assembled. There are no pictures of the strap in progress, but I used a very simple method of folding, stitching, and flipping. I doubled up the ends and went over them thrice with the sewing machine to ensure a firm anchor.



















When I first finished, the strap was far longer than I had anticipated, and hung uncomfortably around my knees. In order to fix this, I simply folded the strap over my shoulder and stitched it up twice. Thus adding some extra padding as well.







I will probably modify the overall design as I find new and interesting things to be finicky about, but for now, it is both functional and moderately attractive. (not to mention large enough to fit my smaller drawing pads and notebooks~)

-This has been a message from everyone's favourite reclusive sociopath, and we will return shortly to our usual programming. Thank you for your patience~!

Spin.