craftgrrl | sew cool (and image heavy)

I made a purse!

Purse! Blue side

Pocket on outside

Pink side!

Pocket on outside

A closeup of how the strap is attached

A closeup of the hardware involved.

This purse wasn't exactly the easiest to make. I happen to be cursed with the "well now that I have it in my head to do something awesome like a reversible purse, I'm gonna have to do it even if I don't have the skills to. Time to improvise!" disease. So despite this being my second purse ever, it had to be reversible. I got the fabric from these little bundle things that Walmart had. It had the cool swirlies, and then coordinating stripes (which will be used later) and polka dots (the pocket stuff). Too cute to pass up.

So I'm making it, and after a minor mishap on the blue side with the pocket (which I have to live with because Walmart had no more of the fabric), I went to every fabric/craft store looking for reversible zippers that weren't 8 feet long. I managed to find a 24in one, but I still had to shorten it. Then I sew the strap in, it's all cute, and I go to flip the purse, and this moron realizes that I can't make a reversible purse with the strap sewn in like a regular purse. Because then only one side can zip. Cue anger.

Another trip to the craft store to get hardware for eyelets and clips. Next time I'll use silver eyelets instead of gold with silver hardware. I could not for the life of me find a good ring to go through the eyelets without messing with pliers (since I couldn't find any in my house at the time) so I ended up using rings off of those easily detachable keychains (see blurry closeup for better understanding) but you can't even tell when the purse is in action.

So, I am rather pleased, but I already want to make a new one with my newfound skills and also with a better idea of what I like (ie-more structure. There are 2 hardcover books inside it letting it stand up.). The strap's a little long, so I need to cut a couple inches off. And when I do that, I'm gonna flip the end the other way, so one blue side and one pink side are pretty and finished, without the other color coming over. Oh, the purse is about 15h x 13w.