Sew Powerful Purses #11-12 for 2026

I have been sewing again and getting some purses made for Sew Powerful Purse Project. I had cut out many kits so I could sew them whenever I wanted to sew. I needed to take some time off from sewing after popping something in my ribcage, and while I am not 100% better yet, I am getting close to 100%, so sewing a bit here and there is working well.

These 2 were from a panel of fabrics that was a donation fabric. It is a drapey fabric, and the colors are so pretty and there are many other designs on the panel as well. I used only a few for flaps and the others I used for lining flaps in other purses that I made or will make.

A sweet friend gave me a gift card to Etsy for my birthday last November and one of the items I got was this purple denim fabric. The photo on Etsy showed a very bright purple that was almost Fuchsia colored and I loved it, but what I received was this lighter purple that is more of a lavender shade of purple instead. Since these purses are made to donate, I kept it and used it to make about a dozen or so purses. The girls who receive the purses won't know, right? 

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2026 Stay at Home Round Robin (SAHRR)

I am participating again this year making a SAHRR quilt. This is the second year I have participated, but this is the 6th year SAHRR has been happening. For more info or to participate yourself, click on the SAHRR link in the side bar of my blog.

This week Gail and the gang involved in bringing the SAHRR are sharing their center blocks and we have one week to post and share ours on the Linky Party on Gail's blog. Since I knew I needed a center block when it was first announced about this year's SAHRR, I thought about using an orphan or UFO block, but in the end I decided to make a sunflower appliqué block, since I love both sunflowers and appliqué. I will have to wait for the clues each time to decide on what I will do next, since I have no idea what those clues will be and what I will do with the clues to add to this center block.

It does not have to be done in the round either, so I could make one block with the next clue, or a couple of blocks to add to each side of the center (or top/bottom), or? It's all up to me how I want to do it and what size block(s) I will make and where I want to place them. So I could make a Row quilt instead of going around. So I will just wait for the next clue and decide then. It will be as much of a surprise to me as to you. 😄

This block is 9-inch finished or 9 1/2-inch unfinished.

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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.

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Flower Embroidery in a Hoop

I finished this embroidery that I started last year in December 2025. After hurting my ribcage, I needed some handwork to do, so this was a great reason to get started on this embroidery. I have also been knitting a lot too. Sewing at the machine is now happening slowly and for short periods of time until I am 100% better. I am getting there.

I hadn't done any hand embroidery in a long time! I thought this was a pretty one. It was a kit from Amazon. The embroidery floss that came with the kit wasn't the best quality though and I think it may have been polyester thread instead of cotton, but it didn't say. It came with 2 needles (not great needle quality and not very sharp needles either) and even little scissors (the scissors were not sharp or very good and could barely cut the thread), a needle threader that really didn't work with the needle size and threads used in the kit, and a plastic hoop, which was fine.

This is the back of the hoop embroidery. I stamped a couple of stamps and wrote the month/year I completed this piece. I glued the stiff fabric to the hoop edge to cover up the back of the embroidery stitches.

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Blue String Quilt Blocks for 2026 Scrappy Rainbow Quilt Challenge

I decided to join the Rainbow Quilt Challenge this year (see side bar link) and the first color is blue. I made some blue string quilt blocks. I may need to make more later, but I am not sure how many I will need right now or how I will set the blocks yet, so time will tell.

Here are a few blocks I made~

Blue string quilt blocks for challenge.

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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 #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.

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