Sew Powerful Purses #100-105 for 2026

Six flaps finished to donate to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

Just a pretty fabric used for the flap. I love that bird and the flowers.

Baby zebra mini panel with scraps sewn around to make it the correct flap size.

Painted texture background with appliqué flower.

Pin It Now!

Sew Powerful Purses #88-90 for 2026

Sunflower flaps for 3 purses. Two flaps are scrappy pieced with the sunflower appliqués and one has a painted texture background with a sunflower appliqué. I do love sunflowers!!!

Donating to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

I added some crystals all around the sunflower petals on this one.

Pin It Now!

Sew Powerful Purses #39-43 (for 2026)

Happy Valentine's Day! While I am working on more heart flaps for the Sew Powerful purses, I don't have them finished yet, just the one I shared a couple days ago. However, I did finish these 5 purses that I will donate to Sew Powerful Purse Project soon.

Painted background, appliqué flower, and pieced webbing strap using up scraps of webbing.

Decorative stitches on the curved scrappy section and a fabric strap using up some partial straps that I joined together.

Scrappy pieced flap with appliqué flower from that rainbow tank top that I have cut up into a lot of flowers. I made the fabric strap out of the same purse body fabric.

Painted background, appliqué rainbow flower from the tank top and a shiny textured vinyl for the center of the flower.

I made this flower years ago. It is fused with fabric on both sides and I riveted it to the flap. It is 3-D, as nothing is sewn on the flower. 2 flower layers and the circle center with the rivet in the center. I decided to rivet the flower on the scrappy blue purse flap.

Pin It Now!

Sew Powerful Purses #32-34 for 2026

3 more purses to donate to Sew Powerful Purse Project that I finished, but hadn't taken photos yet. 

This purse was made with painting a texture background first, then I used my Crafter's Edge die cut

 to cut out the basket and die cut flowers. The basket is actually woven and I blanket stitched around the exterior of the basket only. The fabric that I used for the basket was first treated on the back with Mod Podge fabric formula so that it won't fray where the raw edges are. The flower appliqués are from that rainbow tie dye tank top that I have been upcycling into appliqué flowers. These flowers are small, so I was able to cut them from smaller leftover bits of the tank top. I wasn't sure about this as a purse flap at first, but I really like it. In fact, I am sending this purse, along with another purse I had made last year, to be hand delivered in July to 2 special girls in Zambia. I won 2 Picture Your Purse photos of a girl holding holding a purse I made that will be hand delivered as part of the 2025 Sew Powerful fundraiser event in September. In order to qualify to receive a photo of a purse I made being held by the actual girl who will receive it, I had to help raise $1,000 or more in donations from people like YOU (thank you sooo much!), or make a lot of purses and be in the Top Ten Purse makers during the September Sew-a-thon, which I did by making 160 purses in September alone (508 purses total for all of 2025). If I did both, which I did, then I will receive photos of 2 different girls holding the purses that I made. Something to look forward to later this year. I need to send my 2 purses in 2-4 weeks before they leave for Zambia, so I will hold on to them until then and hope I have more purses to mail in anyhow.

Another flower appliqué from the tank top.

A Paisley Zentangle on painted background. I made the Zentangle years ago in my Zentangle phase, 😆.

Pin It Now!

Sew Powerful Purses #1-10 for 2026

My first 10 completed Sew Powerful Purses for 2026! I had most of the sewing done on these last year, but needed to rest and heal after popping something on my ribcage. I slowly started sewing again a bit here and there and was able to complete these ten purses. 

I painted textures or stencils on the first 5 flaps and added appliqué and the next 5 were scrappy pieced flaps. 

This little print from the 2004 Sisters, Oregon Outdoor Quilt Show, was a tiny tote bag that I cut the print off the front of the little tote to use on this purse flap with added fabric that I pieced to the print to make it large enough for a purse flap. I wish they would sell just small prints like this at their annual quilt show instead of tiny tote bags that aren't very useful as they don't hold much. I bet quilters would buy these prints and save them to make larger quilts or other items, like this purse flap 😉. I should mention this to them, right? I made a purse last year with a different print from one of the Sisters quilt shows too.

Pin It Now!

Sew Powerful Purse #508 for 2025

This might be my final purse for the year 2025 to donate to Sew Powerful Purse Project. I do have more to finish making, but I need to rest my rib cage and stop sewing for a while. I bent over few weeks ago to pick up something I dropped on the floor, I could feel a popping movement in my rib cage. The pain has increased and I think it is because I have not rested enough. Sometimes we are forced to rest and this is that time. At least I ended on a high note with this purse. While I will donate this purse to Sew Powerful, I may set it aside with one more purse for their trip to Zambia in July, because 2 of the purses I make will be hand given to 2 girls and I will receive a photo of each of them holding a purse I made. It is the Picture Your Purse prize that I received from the 2025 Fundraiser by raising $1,000 or more or being one of the Top Ten purse makers during the Sew-a-thon in September. I was both! Yay (thanks to all the people who supported me in this fundraising effort, like YOU)!!! So I will receive 2 photos of 2 different girls holding 2 different purses that I made for them. I think this is one of the purses I will send in for that. I also should choose the other purse from the purses that I finished and set it aside, so that I have it ready to send in as it gets closer to their Zambia trip.

I started making the purses the last week in December of 2020 (made 9 that last week of the year); so in the 5 years I have been making purses, 1,462 is the grand total of purses made. That is an average of 292.40 purses per year.

I got the inspiration to make this flap from seeing a painting on Pinterest. Pinterest is very inspiring, don't you think? I painted the background with paint-sticks and texture plates. The flower is appliqué. I wrote the words using an acrylic pen.

The purse body in the gold fabric print was given to me by my fabric fairy. My fabric fairy has given me quite a lot of wonderful fabrics that happen to be so perfect to make these purses.

Pin It Now!

Sew Powerful Purses #506-507 for 2025

I had fun playing with the leftover scraps of denim that I had from making purses from upcycled denim jeans. The decorative stitches add a nice touch to the flap, along with some buttons and hotfix crystals. I even made the other purse body pieces using up scraps of the denim as well. All will be donated to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

Upcycled denim jean scraps and decorative machine stitches to create purse flap.

Upcycled denim scraps from jeans for purse body along with decorative machine stitches.

Scrappy pieced flap and appliqué curved center with decorative machine stitches.

Zentangle piece I made years ago that I used for the flap lining.

Pin It Now!

Sew Powerful Purses #503-505 for 2025

Another 3 Sew Powerful Purses completed.

I love this stencil to use for the flaps. Painted texture background.

This African fabric print, given to me by my fabric fairy, was perfect to use for the purse body. I made the flap months ago, so when I received this fabric, I knew this would be the perfect flap to pair with the African print fabric.

Some patchwork I made a while back made a nice flap, along with the appliqué flower.

I painted this piece of fabric a long time ago with circle stencils. I decided to quilt the flap and fussy cut the hot air balloon to appliqué onto the flap. The bright red solid fabric I had just enough to make one purse body to go with this purse flap 😉. It made a winning combination for this purse.

Pin It Now!

Sew Powerful Purses #500-502 for 2025

3 purses to donate to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

The appliqué I added to this painted flap background is an Ankara design meaning beauty, so I also added the word, beauty. The smallest alphabet lettering I had was still a bit large to fit onto the flap, so I got creative with the placement of the letters. As you can see, beauty just barely fit. The painted background was done by dipping sliced pieces of pool noodles into paint and stamping onto the canvas fabric. The darker circles were the first dip into the paint and I continued to stamp without adding more paint to the pool noodle to get the lighter circles.

This African fabric was given to me by my fabric fairy, 😄.

I made a second flap with the Ankara symbol for beauty, but on this flap I used a computer font to write onto the flap with an acrylic pen. The background was paint-sticks rubbed over a lid I saved from a frozen dessert that had a raised interior design. I sewed on some buttons in the centers of some  of the designs.

Another African fabric from my fabric fairy. 😂

I found this piece of fabric that I had played with years ago, trying Zentangle designs on a stencil Monstera leaf. I added a few crystals and turned it into a flap for a purse.

Yes, my fabric fairy gave me this African fabric print too. Every few inches was the word HIGH-LIFE printed throughout this fabric.

Pin It Now!