Sew Powerful Purse #1 for 2023

Hello Lovelies. The past 2 months I have been cutting out kits for making the Sew Powerful Purses. I wanted to have them ready to sew when the mood strikes. I cut out 213 kits since November 2022. In the process of cutting out (mostly donated) fabric, I used up quite a bit of fabric and of course ended up with bags of scraps too! I make the flaps scrappy, so the scraps get used there and I try to make a matching postcard for each purse as well, which uses up more scraps of fabric too. But I still have loads of scraps leftover and those will be sewn into string quilts to be donated to Project Linus. It is so satisfying to use up fabric scraps!!!

This is the first purse I made this year and it is made using denim jeans. For the flap I sewed a variety of blue denim colors to make it more interesting that just using one blue shade. I sewed it QAYG (quilt as you go), with the quilting showing on top. The stitching on top not only adds interest, looks good, but it also helps to really flatten those thick denim seams, making it easier to sew the flap lining on later. 

I love to embellish the flaps with buttons, appliqué, touches of ribbon or crystals, usually. For this flap I added appliqué flowers, a couple of buttons and I also added a belt loop with added rivets to this flap as well. I had been wanting to use the belt loops in a creative way and wasn't sure quite how. So I started off slowly and just added one belt loop.

I love how this purse came out! There is even a surprise on the back side as you will see on the last photo.

Added belt loop for fun and riveted the 2 sides.

I like to add a Handmade button or a ribbon that says handmade, which you will see on the next purses I share with you.

The front pocket and inside flap side.

Peeking inside the purse is a beautiful fabric that was donated to me. I had just enough of this fabric to cut linings for 2 purses. 

The side view. I like to add a rivet to secure the straps at the upper side gusset.

This was a fun addition to add! The pocket came from my daughter's jeans (the main body was from hubby's jeans). Hubby's jeans are larger and therefore hard to find a place to use them on these purses as they are too tall. But daughter's jean pocket was the right side to sew to the back for a fun added pocket. I dressed up the pocket first by adding the appliqué hearts. 

This is the intermediate purse with the beginner flap. I love the beginner flap as it is like a blank canvas that I can get creative with. I also love a purse/bag with a gusset, rather than boxed corners. I used gray thread throughout and I love how the topstitching shows the thread. I may just use a neutral gray thread for making these purses from now on, as long as it looks good. It sure makes it easier & faster not to have to change thread colors to topstitch all the different pieces.

I will be sharing more purses with you as I complete them. Oh and this purse (plus 14 more that I make) will be heading to the Atlanta Quilt Show in March. I was asked by one of the volunteers of that show if I would send her some purses to display for the show. Of course I said yes! Now I just need to make them and mail them off as soon as they are done, along with the added card for each purse too.

Happy Scrappy Sewing!

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Sew Powerful Purses #73-78 (for 2022)

Hello my sweet butterflies, I have 6 more purses to show you that I am donating to the Sew Powerful Purse Project. 4 of them I upcycled some denim jeans to make them, which is fun to do and makes for a great purse too. I may just have to make one of these purses for myself one day in upcycled denim jeans (only I would need to make mine a bit larger to hold my stuff). 

I had cut out several appliqué shapes years ago that I used some in projects, but there were a lot that I didn't use, so it was time to find a home for some of the butterflies I had already cut and fused and were ready to be stitched onto something. The crumb pieced yellow and orange background fabric I also had stitched a few years ago and I thought they would make cheerful purse flaps by themselves, but when I was auditioning the butterflies on several purse flaps, the patchwork backgrounds here were the ones that just looked the best. So those pretty butterflies flew on top and there they stayed. 

The main body of the purses are from denim jeans I upcycled. I used the front pockets again as the back of the purse and my daughter's jeans were just the right size to be able to use the back pocket for the center purse above. Mostly I have been using husband's jeans and being larger the back pockets are just too large to add anywhere on these purses, so they will be used in other projects. (Maybe that larger version for me? We'll see). I thought it looked fun to be able to leave the waistband and a belt loop on the 2 purses. The pockets didn't sit up as high on the back by leaving the waistband in. I had cut it off on the first ones I made. I am always experimenting and learning.

This is also an upcycled denim jean purse. I used some leftover denim pieces to create the patchwork flap and the light fabric where the buttons are sewed to is the lining of the purse.

Lots of  calico fabrics in this purse. Can we call these fabrics vintage? They seem vintage now to me.

Another patchwork flap with a few buttons. This flap as well as the 2 above this one are sewn crazy quilt style, but without adding all the fancy stitches as in a true crazy quilt. Maybe one flap I just might stitch some machine stitches over the crazy pieces flap. It might be fun to try that.

I am working on about 7 more purses right now too. Most are nearly done. I like to sew with the matching thread color like blue thread on blue purse pieces and pick out all the pieces that need to be sewn with blue thread and sew those. Then if I need to switch to another thread color I do and I finish all the pieces with that thread color. So I usually have purses in various stages of completion, but it makes it easier not to have to keep changing thread colors for each purse and eventually all the purses get done.

Happy stitching my friends.

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Sew Powerful Purses #56-62

I made 7 more purses for the Sew Powerful Purse Project. Some were made upcycling denim jeans from hubby, some were made with fabrics that were generously donated to me by a woman from the FB Sew Powerful group, thanks Karen! I have a lot more fabric from Karen and hubby's jeans, so I will be making many, many more purses using those again.

These purses are all the intermediate style with the gusset, but I used the beginner flap because it is plain and allows me more room to get creative, which I love and the flap making is my absolute favorite part of making theses purses! I really love the intermediate purse and it's great that you can mix or match from each purse style. I made well over 100 purses in the beginner style and once I switched to the intermediate, I knew this would be the purse I would continue to make as I find it actually easier than the beginner style. I like to topstitch on both sides of the gusset to make the purse look better and to really secure those 1/4-inch seams too. I have added a back pocket to some of these purses, which I will do if I have enough fabric that matches the exterior fabric that I have used.

I cut out all of the fabric pieces needed for these purses, except for the flap. Since I don't know if I will have enough fabric for the flap, I would rather wait and see what exterior fabric is left after cutting the other exterior pieces first. Then if I don't have a large enough piece, I will use the scraps of exterior fabrics I have along with maybe the lining fabric scraps or other fabric scraps that might look good with it and then I will create the flap by sewing a scrappy free form (also called crumb quilt) piece. Sometimes I will sew it quilt as you go (QAYG) or sew the flap and then quilt it afterwards. I also tend to add one or more appliqué shapes (flowers mostly) and embellish with buttons. All this tends to take a bit more time than just cutting out a fabric for the flap, but I love doing the flap as I mentioned and it fulfills my creative side at the same time. The flap is mainly the part of the purse that you see and so I want to make it fun and happy as well as functional. Bonus is that I am using up some scraps! 

I even started making the notecards by fusing fabric appliqué motifs to cardstock. I just did that yesterday, so these purses don't have those cards in the pockets, since I had made other cards already. Including a notecard is required for each purse, but some people only make notecards, so then those purse makers who don't like to make the notecards will still have a notecard included.

Anyhow, on to the purses~

Thanks to Karen for the main exterior fabric. I created the flap using some scraps of the main fabric and other scraps that went with the main fabric. Added a few appliqué flowers and circles and buttons. 

The back of the purse shows the main fabric better.

Thanks to Karen again for the main fabric for this purse. Another scrappy flap with a larger flower appliqué. I sewed the scraps first and then quilted this flap. (Check out my Tip of the Morning Tuesday at the top menu of my blog to see how to make this style flower from a circle).

A better view of this flower fabric. A notecard is peeking above the front pocket.

I did add a back pocket on this purse as I had enough of the main print. 

Karen gave me a lot of beautiful batik fabrics and this is one of them. I used this green print to cut out a flap, but it needed a bit of pop, so my circle appliqué flower technique worked great here. Embellished with buttons and an appliqué flower trim piece.

This brown batik print was also from Karen and paired nicely with the lemon or lime batik flap. The shape of that print looks like lemons to me, but they are green like limes, so you decide which citrus they are, lol!

An added back pocket on this one too.

Another exterior print from Karen. She gave me quite a bit of this print, so I will be making more purses with it. I just had to add something to the flap and I had this appliqué heart already cut out in my cut appliqué box so I added it to the flap. I think it was just what it needed. 

Kind of reminds me of fireworks.

A back pocket too. Oh and that strap I had made already, so I used it on this purse.

Upcycling denim jeans for the body of the purse, so I added some denim scraps to create the flap. Then a large flower appliqué was just the ticket.

.

I really love how this QAYG flap turned out. Mostly brown scraps

 to go with the brown print exterior and brown webbing strap, so it needed a bit of a punch and that flower color was the pop it needed, along with a few blue buttons.

Back of purse, but no pocket. Not enough of this brown print left.

Upcycled denim again, so this flap I used 2 shades of denim scraps in it, along with red and gold fabrics.

I even used gold thread for the topstitching to match the original gold thread jean stitching.

The fun pocket on the back of this one is the front pocket from the jeans. The back pockets unfortunately are larger than the size I need to cut for the back of the purse, so the front pocket works here! This is the 3rd purse I made like this. 

I did add a heart appliqué on the flap, but on the first photo of this purse you cannot see the heart, so I wanted to show it here, along with the back pocket.

So there are 7 more purses that will be making their way to Zambia to help out 7 more girls. I really enjoyed making these purses. Maybe you want to try making a purse for yourself or to donate to Sew Powerful too? You might get hooked on making them like I did or maybe just want to make one. Every purse counts and every one helps a girl to stay in school.

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Sew Powerful Purses #56-66 (for 2022)

Since our plans had to change with the weather, we couldn't leave early Thursday morning to head to Phoenix for QuiltCon. Icy road conditions along the way and we got over 3" of snow here at home. So it was a good day to sew and I ended up finishing eleven more purses to take with us to deliver to Sew Powerful at the show in person. Those purses were already cut out and ready to sew.

I photographed the first ones on the snow we got. These are all the intermediate style purse with the gusset sides/bottom and I used the beginner flap (it's more fun to create on the larger beginner flap). These were all quilt blocks I made that never became a quilt, so decided to make purse flaps and purses. I upcycled some denim jeans for the body of some of the purses.  I also topstitched on both sides of the gusset for extra stability and it looks nicer too.

The center of the flaps were from a Flower and Vegetable Seed packet printed fabric. I only used the flower seed packets because we are told not to use fabric with food on them as the girls who receive the purses often don't have enough to eat and we don't want to remind them of that.

Under the flap so you can see the front of the purse better and there is a large pocket on the front.

Triplets (not identical) though. All Sunflower Seed packets in the center.

I made this purse using some denim jeans. You can see the gusset and topstitching in gray thread on the gusset.

I had cut out some shorter pockets to add to the back of some of the purses, but I accidentally grabbed that back pocket and added it to the front pocket instead. Well I decided to leave it there and see what I thought of it on the front as a double pocket. I think it was a happy accident and I do like the extra pocket there. The flap covers it and keeps things maybe a bit more secure. I had decided the pocket I added to the back was too short and was going to cut taller pockets for the back of the bag next time I make a purse, so I added a couple of these shorter ones to the front instead. Do you have an opinion about this extra pocket?

Two purses with Hydrangea flower packets. They can sure look different with different fabrics and colors pieced around the flower seed packet.

This flap was made sewing scraps of batiks together. Then I added the pink flower appliqué on top. This purse was also made using upcycled denim jeans.

On the back side of the purse I used the front pocket from the jeans. I wanted to add the back pockets on the back of the purses, but those pockets were larger than the fabric I needed to cut, so the front pocket actually fit here and makes a fun looking back of the purse and a bit more useful too.

I added that short pocket on the back of this purse. I think I will cut the back pocket taller on the next purses I make. 

Now that these 11 and the other 55 purses have been delivered to Sew Powerful at their booth at QuiltCon, I will need to start cutting out some more purse kits to sew. But I think I have too many other ideas swimming in my head now after attending the show, that I want to have some fun first and play with quilt ideas first. 66 purses made and delivered before February is even over, is pretty, pretty, pretty darn good if you ask me, lol!

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