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!

Baby Booties Challenge

 

A preview of the project:

Baby booties are done!

My friend is looking forward to some grandchildren in the not-too-distant future, and was asking me if I had any baby crochet patterns among the myriad of resources that I have. She wanted to get a head start on a baby project or two. So I looked, and found

A book of baby patterns to crochet.

Thumbing through the book, I found quite a few really cute patterns and thought this would be a good place for a crochet challenge. It isn't really vintage, like the magazines I have stored up, but, still a good opportunity to try something I haven't done before. It doesn't hurt that I can put the results toward an excellent baby shower gift.

This book has some very cute options in it, which I will explore more at the end of this post, but I'm going to focus on the challenge item first.

A cute collection of booties

The included patterns offer a variety of baby booties, including these. The yarn I had on hand was white with a pink fleck in it, so I was drawn to these in particular:

The Rose Booties

Cute, right? A couple of comments about the book in general. Notice that the print is a good size for easy reading. Also, the binding is a ring binding, which allows the book to stay open to the page you are working from. Good job, publisher!

On to the crochet. The pattern was pretty easy to follow, but the booties are constructed from several pieces, sewn together. I will admit to having some issues with that. Mostly, they are issues of practice and taking care to find the correct start to the joining of the pieces, but still.

So my first booty, even after trying a couple of times to get the sole attached to the sides is rather wonky.

Ummm. Is it supposed to look like that? NO!

The second attempt went better. (See, a matter of practice.) But I'm still not loving it. I just don't know why they need so many pieces!

Definitely better, but not perfect

And, no, it isn't quite finished, and might never be, honestly. I never did get to the roses. On the other hand, I did find out the the little skeins of thread were enough to make at least two booties. Back in the day when I knitted some pairs of socks, I needed a skein for each sock, so I wondered whether that would be the case for these. I had plenty of yarn for the pair in one skein, though.

Well, for my third attempt, I kinda went off the rails and adapted the pattern to be made in one piece. I had to sew the instep down, but it was connected in the right place, and I could work up into the stocking part either before or after I sewed the sides. 

My third attempt at booties - the keepers

My take on this book, and the booties? Well, I think that I could still do a better job on them, but the last ones are definitely usable as they are (more practice is in order, I guess). The pattern took me a few tries to get closer to their intended result, and I'm not done trying for the perfect result. Particularly how they described attaching the sole to the sides. It just looked weird in my opinion, following the instructions in the way I understood them (which could be an imperfect interpretation, I freely admit). I may try one of their other patterns in a different part of the book to see if that is done differently.

I would also be willing to try some of the non-booty patterns in the book. This cute nautical sweater, for instance:

Adorable

There are also several blankets that I could happily revisit:

Cute take on a granny square

Using a variety of stitches

A different take on blocks

I don't know that I would go crazy crocheting a dress or something like that for a baby, but there are several patterns in the book for those who would. There are hats, and more sweaters (a more likely make than a dress for me) along with other blankets and it seems to be a really nice variety of items, and if it is going to be grandparent season among my friends, I could really get some use from the book!