A Purse-onal Accomplishment

I used to sew. A lot. Now the machine collects dust for months before I get it out again. Then, last fall, I was preparing ideas for our ward's Super Saturday. My current calling is as Relief Society Activities leader (I guess that's what you'd call me!). We hadn't had a Super Saturday for a couple of years, so we wanted to make it good. When I found a photo of a fabric purse that was in a zebra print, Alyssa (the zebra-print goddess right now!) absolutely loved it. We got a teacher for the class who has sewn purses previously, and it was one of the more popular classes with the ladies in the ward. I took the girls shopping, and they each picked out a fabric & lining.

Our wonderful class teacher used a free pattern she found online here for her sample purse. (It's called the Buttercup Bag) She also volunteered to cut the fabric and prepare it for anyone who would get theirs to her. Well, you don't have to ask me twice! You betcha!

Then, as it happened, since I was in charge of the day, I ended up not being able to sit down to the purses class at all. I had printed the instructions from the website, but never got back to it. Until about 2 weeks ago. So I decided to surprise the girls and I sewed on the purses while they were gone to school, and carefully put away everything each day so they wouldn't suspect. Here's how it went, with Alyssa's purse as the example:

The purse outer is pleated across the top.
We decided to have a contrasting band at the top, but the original for the pattern showed it in the same fabric.
We used magnetic purse clasps. I didn't know you could buy these things, but yes -- you can! There's a piece of interfacing backing it, to reinforce it.
Clockwise from top right: Here's the purse outer, with the band on, then the pink lining, with the clasps attached and also an interior pocket (the little piece of zebra print you can see), and finally the purse strap.
With insides facing together, it's sewn together at the top. You can see the clasp interfacing in this shot, and where the pocket is sewn in.
These are the completed purses. Which one is whose should be obvious. Darcie chose her favorite bright green and used a "negative reverse" of that fabric for the pink interior. It took me four partial days of sewing to complete them. I could have done each in one day if I hadn't been playing the Secret Sewer.

The best part...... was FINISHING the project! I never like incomplete projects, because it's so hard to get back to them. Plus, I have way too many of them, as Todd will attest.

So to surprise the girls, I called them over and told them that I was just never going to get to the purses, so they were just going to have to sew them themselves. (Grandma H. has been wonderful about giving the girls early sewing lessons, so they've done some sewing already.) I sent them to get out the sewing machine and the bag of supplies........ and out of the bag they pulled the finished purses! It was a nice surprise. And I'm sure they were relieved they didn't actually have to sew! Life is good.