craftgrrl | Woven Ribbon Purse (Reply)

I made this little purse for a friend for Christmas.

I made it by weaving a bunch of ribbons together, backing them with fuseable interfacing, and then cutting it out like regular fabric. It has an orange glass button and an embroidered fabric lining. I got the project from the book "Retro Revamp" by Jennifer Knapp.

I did alter her instructions in a few ways. I redrew the pattern using AutoCAD to be sure I got the angles right, I used wider ribbon (folded in half and sewn) for the straps, and I put in a thin piece of plastic between the ribbon fabric and the liner to hold the bottom flat when stuff is in the purse. I cut the plastic from a clear plastic clamshell-pack I had--you know, the stuff that's so hard to open that you end up cutting yourself to try to remove the product inside? Also, the instructions in the book don't tell you much about sewing, like pinning your pieces together, pressing your seams open, pressing along the folds in the fabric, or pressing the edges at the top down before sewing the liner to the woven ribbon fabric. I had to figure all that out with my sketchy memory of 7th grade sewing class. This was my first project using my first sewing machine.