Scattered Fans Purse

 

Once upon a time, I made myself a purse. A few years later, I made another one. And now, I've made another.

scattered fans purse (without the hardware)

This purse came from a collision of crafting ideas. First "my" purse. I wasn't happy with the purses I could find in the store. I'm picky, because (in great part) I'm not really a fan of purses. BUT, I need to carry stuff, and take it with me. Generally, it's too much stuff to put in my pockets (if the clothing even HAS pockets), much less carry in my hands. What if I need to wait for something? Yeah, there better be a book in there somewhere, too. At least part of the time. But, I don't want a big purse either, to fill up and get heavy.

So, I made myself a purse. I used some black denim and I used the heck out of it.

Not a big fan of the distressed look

It didn't wear as well as I would have liked. First the strap wore out. I was held together by the threads I used to sew it with before I replaced it with this woven belting. THAT lasted long enough to add to the second purse! I also didn't like how that denim just wore out. I was really disappointed with that. Plus the purse was a little smaller than I found I wanted.

The second purse I made was also denim, but a different piece. 

Oh, look how new and clean it looks!

I had fun making this purse, playing with the fabrics on the inside, making pockets for stashing small stuff, adding hardware like clips to hold my keychains out of the way. This purse did a good job, for a long time, but eventually, it also wore out.

Well loved/ well used

It has seen better days

Definitely time for a new purse. I tried making a slouch bag, but it didn't seem to really be what I wanted. Then I started my vintage crafting challenges, and found this magazine in my stash:

Vintage from 1988

It has a scattered fans tote bag pattern in it.

a selection of totes

I fell for that idea in a big way. I started by making fans. I didn't want blue and pink, but I do like the scrappy look of them, and the background fabric peeking through in places.

The pattern for the fans and their placement

The pattern helped me visualize what I needed to do, but of course I wasn't working within a square, so I figured out roughly how many fans (or parts of fans) I would need, and some fabrics I liked, and cut the pieces of the fans out. Then I foundation pieced them with a quilt as you go method. I wanted them to be able to stand some wear! Once I was happy with how they looked on the background fabric, which I also used for the inside of the purse, I found some thin batting which would give the purse some body. I also cut side pieces for depth and shape of the purse. Then I worked on sewing it all together. 

Y'all, I'm going to take a moment here to talk about this machine. 

The Green Singer

She is the first sewing machine I owned. I got her for a present (Birthday? Christmas?) when I was maybe 12 or 13. She was not new then, but in those days she had a simple wooden cabinet which eventually rotted from around her, and I eventually had to take her out before she fell out, and throw that thing away. I got her serviced, and commissioned one of the wood workers at Cruces Creatives to make a box stand for her so I could use her again. This little workhorse will sew pretty much anything that will fit under the presser foot. My other Singer machine will do a lot of things, but it doesn't do that. This girl had no trouble sewing up the layers of that purse. She also does a great job with quilting when there get to be a lot of seams to stack.

Anyway, back to that purse... I made pockets with fan detailing on them to go inside.

Pockets for coupons, and chapstick, and...

And yes, the background/inside fabric is a batik. I love a batik. 

fans scattered on the outside

Finally I added the hardware. Clips for my keys again, taken out of the old purse and sewn into the new one. Another piece of belting for the strap (Thanks, Eva!). And she is ready to go!!

Ready for anything!

I'm counting this as a win for a vintage crafting challenge. Even though I didn't make the item in the magazine, it definitely is related to that tote, and I wouldn't have gotten to this purse if I hadn't found that magazine. I Love it!