I decided I need a new purse for the trip, so I did a new fabric design.  I wanted it to fit my camera, a wristlet and some books for the flight and for carrying around.  First I figured out the dimension that I wanted the purse to be, and then I designed the fabric and had it printed at Spoonflower.  This is what the yard of fabric (36″ x 58″) looks like:

Then, here is the finished bag!

This is definitely less of a “purse” and more of a “throw everything in it bag”. 

  • Big deep zipper pocket on the front under the flap (first time putting in one of these)
  • Flap closes with a magnetic snap
  • Pleather on the sides, bottom and bottom of the strap
  • Jacquard upholstery fabric on the inside.
  • Inside zipper pocket and a line of open pockets on one side for “stuff”
  • Used fusible fleece on the lining to give the bag some body.  I knew I couldn’t fuse it to the pleather without major meltage.

One thing I want to do yet is to make something to put a hard bottom in it to give it a bit more structure.

The matching wristlet

The inside is the main bag fabric, and the wristlet is only pleather on one side.  I was getting tired of trying to get it through the machine. 

This was worse than sewing leather!  I had to put a piece of paper under most of the foot to get it to move it through.  I will have to look into a teflon foot if I do many more of these kinds of projects.  The pulling on the pleather made the seam on the back of the bag bunch up, since then everything didn’t line up right.  I’m just living with that flaw.

Overall, I really like how it turned out. 🙂