Sew Powerful Purse #144 (2025)

I have made a lot of flaps using tiny bits of fabric scraps and other scraps, covered in tulle and quilted the flaps. I wanted to do the same thing for this flap, only I wanted to try denim scraps only (with a few scraps of organza on top for a bit of shimmer). It worked very nicely quilting the denim this way as there were no thick seams to worry about and adding the lining later it was much nicer too without thick seams to topstitch. I quilted it all and then I couched some yarn on top and added buttons too. The tulle I used had some glitter on it too. I tried to remove as much glitter as possible from the outside so it didn't get all over everything. 

Quilted and added couched yarns and added buttons.

This was a fabric that was given to me by a quilter I know. I love the tie dye look!

Back slip pocket.

I made several purses using this tie dye look lightweight canvas material and scrappy flaps. I will be sharing the rest of them soon. 

Donating this and a whole box of other purses I made to Sew Powerful Purse Project. I just packed up a box of 95 purses this morning. Yippee!!! 

Got to go clean and oil my machines next and then start sewing some more kits I just cut up ready to sew. It sure feels good to send a box of purses off to help some girls in Zambia and South Africa too. I used up a lot of fabric, but still no visible dent in my fabrics, except for the selvages that I used making a ton of flaps recently and the denim jeans I used for several purse bodies too. Now I need to make more denim scrappy flaps like this one to shrink the denim scraps bag down.

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Sew Powerful Purses 134-143 (2025)

10 more purses with scrappy fabrics quilted with tulle over the scraps, plus added buttons. 

I use all sorts of scraps, even the outer cut out bits of hearts, and circles from die cutting. Embossed blue tulle and lots of quilting hold it all together.

I also add bits of sparkly yarn, vinyl scraps, an organza scraps.

The left purse I couched some yarn and rickrack on top.

I used up this blue home dec print that I have had for years. All the purses look like these.

All the backs with slip pockets look like these.

Donating these to Sew Powerful Purse Project. I finished sewing the last several purse kits I had ready to sew and have taken photos of those that I will share as soon as I upload them off the camera. Meanwhile, I have been busy cutting out more purse kits the past several days, so I will be back to sewing some more purses this week. I need just a few more purses to fill up a box of purses so that I can send them off to California to Sew Powerful. 

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Sew Powerful Purses 132-133 (2025)

Here are 2 purse flaps using all kinds of scraps, covered in a blue embossed tulle and quilted and some added buttons. Donating to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

A fabric with a bee and the butterfly is part of the embossed tulle.

Another bee. June is Bee Challenge on the Sew Powerful Facebook Group.

Front slip pockets.

Back slip pockets.

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Sew Powerful Purse 131 (2025)

May's purse theme challenge on the Sew Powerful Facebook group was Butterflies. Each month there is a challenge, just for fun. June's theme is Bees. 3 of my butterfly purses that I made in the past were featured on the post announcing this challenge. We can add our challenge purses anytime to the album in the group, so I will add this one there now as I recently got it finished.

The fabric I used for the body is the same home dec fabric I used for the purses I posted yesterday.

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Sew Powerful Purses 129-130 (2025)

I was playing and experimenting again. I had seen a technique using a paper napkin that was added to paper or cloth and I wanted to try it. A plastic food wrap was ironed on over the napkin and fabric and somehow it fused together. That looked great, so I bought some napkins and clear food wrap and tried it. Utter failure! Nothing fused at all. The plastic wrap melted. I did cover the piece with a pressing sheet so it wouldn't make a mess when pressing. 

I saw a another way to adhere the napkin and tried it with the flap with balloons. I used Mod Podge fabric formula. It worked, but it wasn't perfect. I coated over the balloons too so it has a sort of vinyl feel and makes it more permanent as well. Need more practice to get better at it.

The napkin with Farm Fresh Flowers on it, I decided to just use iron on vinyl (Pellon brand) and it worked too, although it is a bit stiffer than the Mod Podge. 

On both flaps I used a light canvas material that I had added textured color to so it wasn't so stark white. The colored textures show through the napkins which I like. It was a fun experiment and I would like to perfect it with more practice. I was thinking I could use some fun decorative papers as well, although being thicker than a napkin the textured colors wouldn't show through and it might make for a stiffer flap, so playing with scraps first I would see what I think.

If you Google this technique, you will also find there are lots of gorgeous paper napkins for sale as well, but rather pricey for just a few paper napkins. I went to Dollar Tree and found these for $1.25 a package and often there are more than one image per napkin too. I got 4 of the same image on each Flower napkin, one image of the balloons, but the rest of the napkin had borders of stars that could be used too. I watched a few videos and in the end did my own thing as the plastic wrap didn't work for me. Maybe my iron was too hot? Maybe because I painted the textures on the fabric the plastic wrap didn't want to adhere? More experimenting required for sure.

These turned out rather well for a first attempt.

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Sew Powerful Purses #125-128 (2025)

4 more purses made with selvages to donate to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

Small panel squares in the center with selvages sewn all around the flaps.

Light canvas fabric for the purse bodies.

Added back slip pockets too.

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Seed Packets Quilt Top

I made the blocks for this years ago and finally added a couple simple borders. I donated this top to Wrap the World With Quilts recently. A volunteer will quilt it.

I forgot to measure this top, but it is about 36" x 49".

Seed packets with courthouse steps strips.

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