Finished Purse

I finally finished my purse that I've been thinking about for a couple months.

I had several different things I was wanting that I couldn't find anywhere in a commercially made purse:

1: Made of cloth - I hate the fake leather feel

2: I needed a mid-length strap that was short enough to keep the purse from being down on my legs, yet long enough to fit over the sleeve of my work coat

3: A way to separate all my stuff so it wasn't all at the bottom

4: A 'secret' pocket that wouldn't bulge out into the rest of the purse when full.

So here is the process and final design details!

You can do anything with a square and a ruler - unless of course the ruler isn't straight.....

 The design and measurements for the interior.

For those of you having issues figuring it out from the pic, basically I have 2 rectangles side by side. One side is divided in half horizontally (small pockets on top of secret pocket) and there are pocket dividers in them.....ask me sometime and I'll show it to you in person :)

If you are wondering what is showing through from the next page, here it is:

And yes, I am tone deaf....sorry to whoever is standing nearby when I start at the wrong point on the line.... :P

And the design for the exterior.

And the exterior decoration. It actually ended up being structural, as the part on the flap is holding the interior and exterior layers together.

I kinda forgot to take pics of the first go round...I had tried making it a bit of a crazy hexagon, but it just didn't work out, so I re-drew the whole thing square and cut all new pattern pieces and started over.

These are the small pockets on top of the secret pocket.

I was pretty happy with this mockup, so I started on the real thing.

Here is my fabric for the interior:

I love it, but it was a pain to work with, as it was continually shedding from every cut edge:

The cats helped, of course ;)

 World's worst paperweight....

Here are the three side by side:

L-finished, M-final mock-up, R-1st draft

And photos of the final:

Here are the pockets (front to back)

3 small, shallow pockets

opening to secret pocket under 3 pockets

2 large, deep pockets

Overall, I really like this purse. the biggest thing I would change is making the flaps larger, and not wrapping them around the corners, as they don't want to fold over.

Recent Projects

New Spur Straps!!!

Plus my new belt buckle, and a gratuitous photo of a calf :) I drew up the design up during Bible Study one night,(see the next photo) and then D. did a little finessing, and made these up! I just love them! I went riding in them today (and walking around chasing cows/calves, hence the manure I didn't get cleaned off before I started my photo shoot...) Everyone asked how they were working....well, my spurs didn't fall off, and they didn't cut into my ankle either! So I'd say they were a success!

 My friend's daughter reaching for her daddy's hand at the playground...isn't it adorable?!?!?!

 In other news...I don't actually use my dishwasher to wash dishes, but rather as a super-deluxe drying rack. Well, it was getting a little cruddy, so I figured I'd run it to clean the inside up....wellllllllllll I ended up with a rather large puddle and the bottom full of water. My landlord said he'd order a new one, and come shop vac up the mess, but he forgot to clean out the dishwasher and my apartment was starting to smell musty....so I spent a buck on tubing and emptied it myself. I filled 2-3/4 of these 2-gallon buckets....I really didn't think there was that much water in there!

 And my current project: (a partial mock-up anyway...)

I'm designing my own purse, since I couldn't find one I liked! This is the start of the first redesign,  so we will see how it goes!

Cool Rug

So, I'm totally in love with this rug from "Good Luck Charlie"....

It's basically a crazy quilt on the floor. From watching them walk on it, it does look like it has a backing....if you look closely at the photos, it looks like the back is stitched to the front with some crazy embroidery....I definitely want to try making this soon....

Christmas Decorations

I had to put this cat in a box so he'd stop 'helping'.

 And here is the final product:

This is my favorite part: it's snowing in my kitchen!!

My House Smells Like Christmas!!!!

My fall decorations for Thanksgiving

Mikey is overseeing decorations while Mo is playing around.

And now the tree is set up and Mo is playing with it

 I'm pretty sure we are going to do an ornament-less tree this year...Otherwise they will all be on the floor...