Sew Powerful Purses #472-485 for 2026

Happy October 1st! The Sew-a-thon has ended and Sew Powerful not only made their goal, but they surpassed it!!! Yay!!! Thank you to all who supported me in this effort to raise money to help the girls in Zambia so they can stay in school. Sew Powerful's goal was to raise $250,000 and they raised $267,920, which means even more girls can stay in school, yippee!!!!!!! I too surpassed my fundraising goal as well as my purse making goal for September too! I raised $1,685 ($1,000 goal) and guess how many purses I completed in September??? My goal was to make 180 purses, but I kept sewing and I ended up making 252 purses in one month!!! That gives me a grand total of purses made so far this year of 541 purses and there are still 3 months left of this year. Well I can tell you I need a break from sewing them this month as I was worn out sewing them for a whole month!😂I even ran out of notecards to include in the last several I finished, so will be working on notecards this month.

On last Monday I sent in 2 large boxes full of purses. One box had 142 purses inside and the other had 143 purses inside, for 285 total purses. I probably won't send in any more purses this year as I don't think I could finish enough by the end of the year. 

Here are just a few of the last purses made during the Sew-a-thon from September. I have more to share in the next few days.

This is the other Intermediate purse with the other flap (Option B). I thought I had shared this one already. I shared the other Intermediate flap in my last post so you can see the differences in the flaps.

2 pineapple quilt block flaps.

These 2 were quilt blocks I made from a Jacquelynne Steves BOM from years ago. The blocks were too large for the flaps, so I cut them to fit the flap size, hence the other fabrics surrounding the appliqué had already been sewn on.

Patchwork squares on the diagonal.

I made this pieced reacup and saucer block years ago. I added a doiley.

Appliqué flower on the left purse is a textured vinyl, the appliqué on the right is from a tie dye tee shirt.

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Sew Powerful Purses #275-277 for 2026

I was experimenting with these flaps and decorative machine stitches. They were fun to make and I want to make some more, but I have a ton of purses to construct all September for the Sew-a-thon, so I will be busy all September and probably through the rest of the year as I went overboard creating purse kits to have ready to sew. Last Sew-a-thon I sewed all the kits I made and even cut out about 5 or 6 more to sew up before the month was over. I made 160 purses for last year's SAT and this year my goal is 180, but I didn't want to be short on kits so I made way more than I can sew in a month just in case 😉. Next year I want to do more flaps similar to these.

I pieced the denim and added decorative machine stitches over the seams.

I had to piece this piece too and added a ribbon and decortive stitches.

String quilt flap.

Please donate in my honor for the Sew-a-thon. Click here and then choose the amount to donate. $10 fills one purse to keep one girl in school. Thank you so much for your support! Or click on QR code below to donate.🤗

Scan QR code to donate or the link above.

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Sew Powerful Purses #186-191 for 2026

6 more purses to donate to Sew Powerful Purse Project. Scrappy pieced flaps, most with appliqué flowers. I made fabric straps for 5 of these purses and one I used a webbing strap.

Echinacea flower is my favorite flower (sunflowers are a favorite flower of mine too), so I added a large flower over his scrappy background. The brown cone didn't show as well as I liked, so I painted with a fabric maker around the top of the cone, giving it a bit of a halo effect.

This flower is made from wool fabric.

The flower petals is a felt material, while the center of the flower is cotton.

I cut this flower from a leftover piece that was quilted already.

Using some leftover fabrics for this flap.

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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 #421-422 for 2025

2 more Sew Powerful purses for a couple of Zambian girls. 

I love adding flower appliqué to purse flaps and especially a sunflower, one of my favorite flowers. 

I had some scraps of this exterior fabric leftover and created the scrappy flap above, using some of the fabric scraps before adding the sunflower appliqué to the flap.

This flap is an X-Block Star quilt block and I added fabric strips around it to make it large enough for the flap. It was a leftover block from a table runner I had made about a year ago.

I had a fat quarter of this print for the exterior and the other purse exterior too. I can make one purse exterior out of a fat quarter, so time to use up some fat quarters that were hanging around for too long.

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Sew Powerful Purses # 419-420 for 2025

I spent most of October making purse flaps and cutting out more purse kits so I have them ready to sew into purses to donate to Sew Powerful Purse Project. I finally got a few purses sewn to share.

I was looking through my fabric and decided to cut out as many purse kits as I could to use up the floral and stripe fabrics that I had for a long time. There is metallic gold on both fabrics and these fabrics coordinate together with the same colors in each print. Then I made the flaps from the leftover scraps and added other fabric scraps that looked nice with those 2 prints. A flower appliqué added the extra touch it needed.

The front of the purse shows the floral print and the stripe print that coordinate together.

I had to piece some webbing to make this strap and added fabric over the joins.

Here is the striped fabric. The flap lining fabric was gifted to me and it was several different small panels that I cut apart and will use most for flap linings on other purses. Each were different prints. 

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Sew Powerful Purses #360-361 (for 2025)

These 2 purses were made with donated panels that I added scraps to make the flaps large enough. I used denim jeans for one purse.

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