Sew Joy: denim purse

There's still time to check out the Giveaways listed at Sew, Mama, Sew. Click on the button above to go and see.

MY GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. THANKS FOR VISITING. THANKS SEW,MAMA,SEW. WINNER WILL BE EMAILED SHORTLY, THEN ANNOUNCED ON MY GIVEAWAY POST.

Click on the coasters picture above to GO TO MY GIVEAWAY POST.

Soooo many comments from my giveaway have listed curtains as something they have made for their home. I don't even consider making curtains sewing! Well, not fun sewing anyway.

Here are a few other things mentioned so far.

Sewing machine cover.

I made mine to match in the living room/sewing space where I have a Klimt print on the wall.

I used the pdf tutorial over at Spool to make this one and another smaller version for one of my nieces.

Potholders.

I know there are potholder swaps going on in blogland. A fun way to play with a little bit of fabric and a design. This one is an example I made when I helped my husband's grade 5 class make potholders and mitten ornaments for a fundraiser at Christmas. All of our fabric was donated by the Local Quilt Shop - thanks Cindy Bee!

Friendship bag.

I love to make these. Sweet and simple. Great birthday gifts for little girls and older ones too! There is a tutorial by Rachel of p.s. i quilt. I have more cut out to make too.

Tote bags.

I really enjoy making bags. And modifying them. This is from the Spring 2009 issue of Quilts and More. I added a zipper to make it more useful. It was a present for my mom's birthday.

Denim purse.

Made for my daughter from a pair of her jeans. Great pockets! Fun project.

Green Bag Lady bags.

Can't have too many! A great way to use up fabric you can't/won't use anywhere else! The thin fabric ones fold up great into a purse so you always have a bag with you.

Okay.
So there are definitely more fun things to sew than curtains!

Make sure to visit the Quilt Festival that takes place across Blogland starting Friday. You can click on the button above to go to the details about how to participate. I still haven't decided what quilt I will show. It'll be a surprise!

With Joy,
Sarah Vee

I finished the denim purse.

It looks better in use.

I broke my purple needle. My first broken needle in 13 years of quilting.
My seam ripper and I also had the chance to bond in the making of this purse.
Warning - graphic stitches to follow!

This is where I broke the needle. See the back seam? There is still no topstitching there as it's just not happening with my machine.

This denim has quite a bit of stretch thanks to spandex. While I didn't follow any pattern to make this purse (which is fairly obvious!), I did take notes and use others' ideas to make it work. The strap on the purse and the idea to do pleats (which are NOT a good idea on denim!!) came from Rae's buttercup bag pattern. I was intending to make this bag - even cut out the pattern. But my denim pieces were too small.

Some more yucky stitches. I put in a recessed zipper using Jane's tutorial again. The lining material is from one of my husband's old dress shirts. The top edge really needed to be stitched down as it kept sitting above the purse line. But there's some pretty thick denim seams here. Hence the yucky stitches. I did manage to get the front of the purse edge sewn down without much trouble.

The Birthday Girl is happy with it. She took it for a test run and I had to refasten the strap. We'll see how it holds up.

Fun, but time to get back to the Bunnies!

With Joy,
Sarah Vee