Sew Powerful Purses #161- 162 for 2026

Scrappy pieced purse flaps with flower appliqués. Donating to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

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Sew Powerful Purses #64-68 for 2026

5 more purses completed to donate to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

Scrappy pieced rectangles.

This was a Spiderweb quilt block I had that I turned into a purse flap.

Another heart finished for the February challenge at the Sew Powerful Facebook group.

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Sew Powerful Purses #55-57 for 2026

3 more finished purses to donate to Sew Powerful Purse Project. 2 with appliqué and one is scrappy pieced. 

Scrappy upcycled denim jeans for the flaps with added appliqué, ribbons and buttons.

Scrappy pieced bee fabrics. I stitched the button on like a little flower with embroidery floss, but the white beads are inside this button and that makes it an interesting looking button.

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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.

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Sew Powerful Purses #36-38 (for 2026)

3 more purses to donate to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

This scrappy pieced purse flap was made using quilter's 2-inch fusible grid. So easy to place 2" squares on the grid and sew rows to create a patchwork. The squares finish at 1 1/2" square. Great for scrap busting small scraps with fabulous results! You can place the scraps at random like this flap or in a number of pattern configurations.

On this flap I used the same fusible grid product, but I placed the same fabric in diagonal rows instead of a random placement.. 

This scrappy pieced flap was done in blue scraps and then I added a flower appliqué

 made from that same rainbow tank top that I have been using for flower appliqués. I even made that button years ago when visiting my sister. She had a Shrinky Dink plastic product and let me try it. So I cut out a larger circle and stamped in blue with one of her stamps and punched out tiny circles in the center for the button. Then the plastic gets heated in an oven and shrinks down. Not sure what percentage it shrinks, but maybe 40%-50%? I thought that was cool. I know I made a few others too, but hadn't used them before. When I saw this button in my blue button jar, I had to add it to this purse. I bought a few sheets of the Shrinky Dink plastic after visiting my sister, but have I used any of it? No! I think now that I have a lot of stamps myself and a few punches, I could and should make some more buttons. One day I will spend a few hours doing just that.

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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, 😆.

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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.

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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.

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Sew Powerful Purses #480-482 for 2025

Artsy looking flaps on these 3 purses.

Ultimate scrappy quilted flap with added rickrack, tulle overlay, buttons & words from ribbon

 appliquéd on.

The purse exterior is a dark purple floral.

Scrappy pieced flap with appliqué flower from a rainbow colored knit tank top.

Zentangle flowers with painted background and painted flower petals.

The exterior fabric looks like it was painted.

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Sew Powerful Purses #473-476 for 2025

Four more purses, 3 have Hawaiian print purse bodies.

I added a little fabric from the purse body and the flap lining in this scrappy purse flap to tie it together.

I also had a couple pieces of scraps from the purse body to add to this purse flap as well as the next 2 purses.

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Sew Powerful Purses #469-472 for 2025

Four purses to donate to Sew Powerful Purse Project with Hawaiian print fabric for the purse body, along with scrappy flaps and appliqué flowers on each. I used a scrap piece from the purse body fabric in each flap. The flowers I cut from my die cuts.  

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