Sew Powerful Purses #239-241 (2024)

Another 3 purses done. Upcycled denim jeans for 2 purses and a corduroy purse for the 3rd one. Donated these to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

I pieced the background fabric and added a small size Mod Dog appliqué on top. I love making the scrappy Mod Dog; he's so cute.

Upcycled denim purse body front.

Denim jean pocket on the back with a couple of heart appliqués.

I do think this is the last of this fabric that Karen H. donated to me a long time ago. I appliquéd a circle of it onto the denim flap. 

This denim pocket I made for the back pocket.

Here is the second Alaska batik print piece I had (I shared the other purse I made that is similar to this one a few days ago). I pieced batik fabrics around the Alaska print.

Corduroy purse body.

Back slip pocket.

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Sew Powerful Purses #235-238 (2024)

Four more purses to donate to Sew Powerful. 3 of these purse flaps were quilt blocks that I picked up for free several months ago on the freebie table at the quilt group. As soon as I saw them I thought purse flaps! There were several quilt blocks in each stack I got, so I will be sharing the others too another day. They sure made nice flaps. The last one was an appliqué I made quite a while ago.

I got a stack of these quilt blocks all in different prints, some with dark backgrounds like this one and some were light backgrounds. I added a few scraps to bring them up to the flap size and then made the purse body out of corduroy. Added a button with a stitched flower for a bit of bling.

Back slip pocket.

These purse flaps were in another stack of quilt blocks I got. They were all pinwheel quilt blocks in various colors. Again, I added scraps to make them large enough for the flaps and double stacked buttons to give them that pinwheel look.

I also used this corduroy for the purse bodies.

This was an appliqué that I made a while back. I found it and decided it too needed to become a purse flap.

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Grinch Hand Holding Christmas Ornament (wall quilts)

I made two small wall quilts: a large and small Grinch hand holding an ornament.

Closeup.

This quilt measures 8 1/2" wide x 14" high.

This is the small quilt that measures 7" wide x 9 1/2" high.

🎄🎅🤶☃❄❅❆⛄🌨

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Sew Powerful Purses #233-234 (2024)

2 purses made with batik fabric scraps for the flaps. The purse on the left has an upcycled denim jeans body, while the purse on the right was made with a woven fabric that looks like it is a Mexican or Guatemalan style fabric, but I am not certain.

Using batik scraps, my fabric fabric scrap because of the bright colors batik fabrics have. I had a couple of small pieces that had Alaska printed on them, so I used it as a focal point. (I made another purse with the Alaska piece like this one too).

Upcycled denim jeans purse body on the left and the woven print on the right.

I added a jean pocket on the back of the purse on the left. I also appliquéd a flower on that pocket. A slip pocket was sewn to the purse on the right.

2 more purses to donate to Sew Powerful.

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Sew Powerful Purses #230-232 (2024)

Some more purses finished to donate to Sew Powerful Purse Project. Each has a different style flap.

This purse flap is done with raw edge scraps and heavily quilted. Added button sewn on with little flowers. 

The body of the purse is corduroy, which makes a nice purse.

Added pocket on the back side.

I found an old quilt block I made from maybe 2 decades ago? Geesh, where does the time go? I sewed fabric strips around the flap to make it the correct size and the flap was done.

Hot pink fabric for the purse body.

Back of purse with added slip pocket.

This purse flap was a flap I had painted, but it still needed something more, so I cut a quarter Hawaiian quilt block flower out of an old tie dyed tank top and appliquéd the flower in the corner and added stacked buttons. It still looked unbalanced, so some rickrack, narrow couched yarn, decorative machine stitches, hand stitched French knots and a few more buttons to the rescue.

I used upcycled denim jeans for the body of this purse.

The back has a jean pocket with some appliqué hexagons I already had cut out.

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Japanese Rice Bags to Hold Sewing Machine Foot Pedals & Cords

I have a few sewing machines, mostly vintage machines and I needed some bags to hold the foot pedal and cord in so the pedals don't get lost or misplaced. I made a clear vinyl window for each bag and printed out the name of the machine to slip into the clear pocket so that I make sure that I have the correct pedal and cord for each machine to make it easier to find. 

The style of these bags are called Komebukuro or Japanese Rice Bag. Since this was a Japanese design bag, I decided to make my own drawstring cording using another Japanese technique called, Kumihimo, which is a braiding/cording technique done on a foam disk or traditionally with tools like the marudai & takadai that were developed to create intricate braids with greater efficiency. Marudai tool makes round braid, whereas the takadai tool makes a flat braid. You can go to this site to see some photos of the various tools, including the simple portable ones they have today, which is what I use.

Kumihimo are braided silk cords that have been made in Japan for over fourteen hundred years! 

I made Kumihimo cording for my Rice Bags by using up what I already had on hand. I am trying my best to not buy anything and to use what is available in my supplies. I used ribbon yarn in a variegated black/gray color along with a green yarn. I ran out of the one green yarn and grabbed another green yarn that was close. So the bag that holds the Brother pedal has one different green in one of the cords I was making, while the Pfaff cording was all the same green. 

These were quick to make once the quilting was done. The quilting took the most time, but you don't have to quilt the bags or quilt them so close like I did. I cut my fabric and batting oversized when I quilt as the fabric/batting squares do shrink up quite a bit. The 5 squares were squared up after quilting to 7.5" square and another 5 squares were cut for the lining, along with interfacing for the lining as well. 

Some people get artsy with each square side of their bags and do hand stitching, appliqué, piecing, embroidery, etc. You can certainly make a very unique bag by making each of the 4 side different. I didn't need such a fancy bag to hold my machine pedals in, so this was a quicker bag to make for that purpose.

My bags are happy holding the pedals and cords for my sewing machines. I recently made a large one for a newer machine that has a much larger foot pedal. I will share that one soon.

I made a clear vinyl window for each bag so I could slip in the name of the sewing machine. 

Inside each bag is my foot pedal, cord, and for the Brother machine on the left is my clip on stitch chart too.

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Sew Powerful Purses #226-229 (2024)

Two sets of twin purses. The first is a Siamese cat print flap with upcycled denim jeans body. I cut these out months ago to be made into these purses and recently finished them. Several months ago we we told that cats, bats, owls and hyenas are animals that have negative connotations with the people who live in the rural areas of Zambia. We are not to use those animals in our purses, however there are volunteers in Zambia who will sort through the purses and set aside any with those purses with those animals to make sure they are not sent to the rural schools, so while we shouldn't use those animals, the girls who don't live in rural areas are fine with them. I doubt anyone would make a purse with a hyena or even a bat (unless there are little bats on a Halloween fabric), but there have been lots of cats and owl purses made in the past and even recently I have seen those on the Facebook Group. I personally will no longer make any purses with those animals so as to not add a burden to the volunteers there. These were the last ones I had all cut to make into purses and the girls do need them, so these will be the last ones I do with cats. 

I used whatever cat fabric I had and then added strips of fabric to it in order to make it the size needed for cutting the flap.

Upcycled denim jeans for the purse bodies.

This was such a pretty fabric that I made the entire exterior using this fabric. I rarely do plain flaps like this, but if I have enough fabric for the flap I will cut a whole fabric flap. I usually cut the body pieces of a fabric and then use scraps for creating the flap, or just make an artsy flap and find a fabric that will work well for the body.

I used whatever fabrics that I had for the lining pieces.

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Sew Powerful Purses #222-225 (2024)

These were fun purses to make. I upcycled denim jeans for the purse bodies and I fussy cut the motifs from a large print fabric to appliqué onto the purse flaps. I painted one flap (2nd from the left), added buttons for a bit of bling and even added a couple of appliqué from the same fabric as the teapots & chicken on the back of 2 pockets. I hope the girls receiving these see them as fun and whimsical as I do.

3 teapots and a chicken or a rooster?

Back of purses with pockets and a couple of appliqué.

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