Sew Powerful Purses #210-218 (2025)

9 scrappy selvage purses! I went crazy making selvage flaps in the Spring and I am still sewing purses with the flaps. I did make a dent in all those selvages I had been saving, so that was good.

These 4 have black floral print bodies.

These have purse bodies using a purple background with pink flowers. All donated to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

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Sew Powerful Purses #207-209 (2025)

I found some more leftover border units to sew into purses. I made 2 vertical and one horizontal this time. 3 more girls to receive purses that I donate to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

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Sew Powerful Purses #205-206 (2025)

I had a Twister Pinwheel block I didn't use in a quilt that was leftover, so I put it on the flap and added strips of fabrics around it to make the flap the correct size. I really like how this flap looks with the pinwheel. I might just need to make some more pinwheels on purpose now 😂. Donated to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

Another flap with an appliqué house. I made several of these house flaps already as I had several house blocks made.

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Sew Powerful Purses #202-204 (2025)

3 More scrappy pieced selvage purse flaps to donate to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

The left purse has a fussy cut Debbie Mumm print of a sunflower.

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Sew Powerful Purses #200-201 (2025)

2 more purses for Sew Powerful Purse Project. 

Debbie Mumm print in center with selvages sewn all around.

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Sew Powerful Purses #197-199 (2025)

Donating these 3 purses with selvage flaps to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

3 more flaps with fabric selvages.

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Sew Powerful Purse #193 (2025)

Another Happy Scrappy Purse Flappy to lighten the Pile O Scraps a wee bit, a very wee bit.😂 I love sewing scrappy flaps like this. It's addicting and satisfying too. I used all batik fabrics in the flap.

Donating to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

Scrappy pieced flap.

Front pocket. I only had a fat quarter of this exterior fabric, which yielded one purse and more scraps 😜, but hey it's all good as I can use those scraps in other purse flaps or quilts.

Back pocket.

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Sew Powerful Purse #192 (2025)

This flap is made with all kinds of fabric scraps layered on top of a foundation fabric and then tulle placed over it and quilted. I added some couched yarn and buttons too.

Donated to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

The ultimate scrappy quilted flap.

Closer look 

This fabric was donated to me and I had just enough to make one purse. The print reminds me of beans, like pinto beans or kidney beans, 😂.

Back pocket. I had to piece the pocket, so I added some lace trim over the seams.

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Sew Powerful Purse #191 (2025)

Another Happy Scrappy Purse Flappy! It's so satisfying using up scraps of fabric. Donated to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

I added a little TV appliqué and sewed a heart patch in the center.

Front pocket.

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Sew Powerful Purse #190 (2025)

I found a few motifs that I had from a fabric and fussy cut them to use for the center of this purse flap and some other flaps that I made too. Here is one of them. 

I used the wiggle stitch to sew it on the fabric and I added a sewing machine button for fun too.

 The colorful strips were donated to me from a friend.

These fabrics were donated to me to use for the purses I make and donate to Sew Powerful Purse Project. It is so kind of people to donate fabric to me for this cause. It's fun to use a new fabric to make a purse (or purses) too.

Back pocket.

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Sew Powerful Purses #188-189 (2025)

2 Scrappy purse flaps with a Debbie Mumm print in the center. I must have had this Debbie Mumm print for 20 years or probably more? The print had all kinds of little things on it like a variety of girls, and sunflowers, schoolhouses, watermelon and more. So I just fused some fusible web onto the back side and fussy cut out all the various motifs and started using them for the centers of both scrappy fabric purse flaps as well as scrappy selvage flaps and sewed all around the motifs. There were quite a lot of flaps I made from the Debbie Mumm print, so you will (and already have) seen some of them, but there are more to come. So glad I used that print up in making these purses to donate to the girls in Zambia so they can stay in school all year. Such a great feeling to give them purses and to use up fabric I have had a long time or quilt blocks I never used before making them into purse flaps as well. This is such a great project for using all the scraps leftover from making the purse bodies and adding them various flaps also. 

Donating to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

I started these by cutting the purple fabric with stars and setting it on point and fusing the Debbie Mumm prints and stitching them in place and then sewing scraps of fabrics all around. 

The exterior fabric and the lining fabric were donated to me. 

Back added pockets.

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7 Knit Bird Nests for Wildlife Rescue

I belong to a stitch group at a local library and the librarian in charge of the group was asked by a wildlife rescue group to ask the members of our group to knit or crochet bird nests🐦. I Googled about making bird nests and found out that this is a real need in many states and other countries too. Who knew? They not only use the nests for birds, but small animals too like mice, etc. Google to find out where the nests are needed in your area and most offer free patterns on their sites too.

What all the wildlife organizations out there mentioned in their websites and on the bird nest patterns was to use double yarn (2 worsted weight yarns held together when knitting or crocheting). Worsted weight is probably the best weight to use. Most said acrylic yarns was best, or wool and most said cotton was the least favorite. They need to be washed, so that is probably why acrylic is best to use. Wool can felt, which might make a nice nest, but it will become a smaller nest too. All sizes of nests were needed, with about a 4" base for most. 

They ask for a double yarn to make a firm nest without any holes (so tiny feet and beaks don't get caught) and so when the birds get bigger they can hop up on the rim of the nest and it won't collapse, but will suppose their weight. 

I knit these nests. I wanted to crochet a few too, but I cannot get the hang of crocheting 15 stitches into a circle to get started and I have trouble seeing the stitches and where the round begins and ends. Even if I am supposed to chain 2 stitches at the beginning or the end, and if I use a stitch marker in crochet, it is one of those safety pin kind of markers, I am still not sure where to place it each time, since I am supposed to chain 2 stitches and not sure if it goes before or after the 2 chain stitches, 😜? I can crochet the stitches just fine, but the beginning and ending of a round or a row gets me stumped as where it is and those stitches are confusing to me, since most of the time you skip the first stitch and crochet in the next, but I am never quite sure if I am skipping an actual stitch or what? I prefer knitting as the stitches are all on a needle and easy to tell they are a stitch and I use a ring marker that stays on the needle and only gets slipped onto the needle as I knit and doesn't need to be pinned on the stitches and repined every time I do a stitch at the marker. It looks so easy when I watch a video online, but most go so fast that I just cannot watch what they are doing and then try to do what they did to get that ring started. I need someone in person to help me. I know I will never be a crocheter for most things.

Anyhow, back to the knit nests. Here is what I knit and they knit up quickly. I made 7 nests to donate. Great for using up miscellaneous yarn. These aren't easy to photograph, so I took photos of the top looking into the nests, the bottom of the nest when flipped over and from the side so you could get the idea better.

Nests all stacked up.

Looking down inside some nests.

Inside the nests.

Side view.

Bottom of nests. These were knit with wool yarn.

These are wool yarn nests showing the nest bottoms.

This actually is 2 cotton knit pint ice cream cozies I knit a long time ago and they didn't quite fit the cartons of ice cream. So I placed one inside the other and sewed them together to give them the double thickness for the birds and rolled the top down. Rather a bird use this so it doesn't go to waste.

Side view.

2 acrylic nests.

Bottom of nests.

Side of nests.

Happy bird nest knitting or crocheting.

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Sew Powerful Purses # 185-187 (2025)

3 more purses done! These all have front pockets and back pockets, even though I didn't photograph the back pockets, since they are the same as the other purses I shared using this same exterior fabric.

Donated to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

9 patch pieced flaps with added butterfly appliqué in batik fabric.

Front pockets.

Front  pocket.

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