The Purse

I had every intention of getting up first thing this morning, the sun shunning, rooster crowing, scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast, and sit down at the sewing machine and work on the purse.

That is until the alarm clock went off at 7am, and it was cloudy, and cold.  With that, my dreamy hot morning breakfast turned into a cold bowl of fruit flavored Cheerios. (Which are amazing by the way, if you haven't had them yet.). So since my whole day was thrown off by a non sunny day, I decided to toss a load of laundry in the machine, prop my feet up on my new stool, eat my Cheerios, and catch an episode of Raising Hope.

THEN I wandered down stairs to get some more stabilizer and get to that PURSE!  But I was distracted, it happens SO easily. But honestly, how could THIS NOT catch your attention?!

The little boogers have figured out that the house is a giant abode, and that the downstairs door is the giant pophole that The Boy comes out of. The Boy, of course, means food.  Therefore by the transitive property, the giant door means food. After a 5 minute goofy conversation with a plate glass window and clueless chickens that don't speak English, The Boy did indeed pop out of the door, with food.  Huh, it worked.

Back to my task.  My machines, yes machines - multiple, are starting to take over the dining room.  One, the Bernina, has migrated to the kitchen island.   Janome is on the linen cabinet, and the Viking is on the dining room table.  So far, all of the countries are getting along and behaving.

JUST as I sat down with my stabilizer and purse pattern, the phone rang.  Telemarketer.

Back to the purse.  The embroidered portion was completed last night and still had its heavy stabilizer attached.  I decided that to give the purse more body, I would leave the stabilizer on, and even add some to the back piece as well.

I use sulky's adhesive stabilizer.  I highly recommend it.  You hoop the stabilizer and simply slap your fabric onto the adhesive.  No messy sprays to gum up your needle or hoop.  No hoop marks on your fabrics and no stretched fabric and puckered applique.

I trimmed the stabilizer to match the shape of the purse front and its matching back to the front.  This way your purse is lined.  The larger back panel also has a back piece so that the entire purse is lined.  I decided to place a piece of stabilizer between the two back pieces as well.  (sorry for the blurry photo)

So The front embroidered piece has a front, center and a backing AND the egg shaped back piece has a front, center and back.  Got it?

Each one of these sandwiches was attached together with the server to keep all three layers together.  I then dug out an old supply of deep red, double fold, bias tape.  I folded the tape gently along the top edge of the front panel and topstitched it in a matching thread, gently easing it around the curve.  Then it was trimmed to match the edge of the front panel.

The front panel was then set on top of the back panel and they were serged together. 

I then flipped the purse over so that the back was facing up.  I opened the bias tape and stitched it near the edge.  I then gently teased the bias tape to not only fold along its natural fold, but carefully around the curves.  This looks ugly, and scary, and messy.  It's one of those points during a project where you can feel the disaster that can ruin the whole project up to that point.  I didn't stop to take a photo.  I didn't want the bias to sense my fear.

After the bias tape settled flat, I realized that I'd been holding my breath and let out a big sigh.  I then topstitched the edge of the bias tape with a straight stich, and then a decorative stitch.  GIANT SIGH.

I decided to attach it to the skirt with an intricate silver filigree button.  This would require a buttonhole in the purse.  I chose a keyhole style of hole.  Who needs to breathe?  Back to the machine.

In this photo, the button is simply sitting in the hole so you can see what it would look like attached to the skirt.  I think the set is lovely!

Next is the red petticoat!