the cowgirl purse

this is what i refer to as the cowgirl purse. i made it almost a year ago. and it took me longer than i week, i think. i made it out of a denim shirt that mom bought for me that had embroidery of a cowgirl on her horse on the back embriodered in large letters across the back shoulders it says "WESTERN". the patches on the purse are ones that i cut out of a beautiful vintage sheet with green flowers all over ith which i got at the salvation. this view is what i refer to as the "front" of the purse.



here is a detail of the pocket. i sewed a patch of the sheet to the pocket because i thought i was going to like the way it turned out-turns out i don't! oh well.





the bottom of the bag is a square.








side view and detail. i'm actually still not done with this bag. while i was putting on the finishing touches (the dog is laying right over my lap and nudging me and making it very h ard to type) like the zig-zag in the picture on the right, i ran out of thread!!!!! (for you non-sewers, this is a sewers worst nightmare!!!)


these are views of the "back" and strap of the purse. i had envisioned the strap coming out differently. i think it's a little too thick for my liking and for this purse. it doesn't go with the style of the purse, but it was a bitch to get it to work, so i'm not going to try to fix that any time soon.

this is the inside of the bag. i lined it with the beautiful vintage sheet fabric. (i looooove, love, looove this fabric!!!!)



this is the inside pocket. it's the first pocket i've ever made like this. i hada a brilliant idea to make this pocket that ad different places for my favorite things (cell phone, pens, and junk). i wanted this pocket to be multi-functional. then one fateful day, i was looking through my new martha stewart magazine (thanks ash!!) and there was a pattern for the exact pocket that i wanted to make!!!! and it was seeeeeeewwwwwwww easy!!!! (that was just a little pun for you.) seriously though-it was sew easy. so that's my pocket story.

now, remember how my first sentence in the last paragraph contained the word "inside"? well, i wanted this purse to be reverseable. SO IT IS!!! so it's either the inside or the outside pocket.



and voila! inside becomes outside!!! it kindof looks like a tool-belt pocket. man, that pocket!!


i really had high hopes for this purse. it was really the first serious purse i've ever made. i didn't really do any drawings for it, and i certainly didn't follow a pattern-just whatever my little heart desired.

the sad thing is that i put so much time and effort into it, but i've only used it a few times. i did a lot of things wrong with this purse. well, only one thing, really:

the strap

i really have a problem figuring out how long straps should be. i hem and haw and measure and re-measure, but it never seems to turn out right. the strap on this purse is okay, but i chose not to sew the arm hole closed and so there's a huge opening on the sides (big enough for an arm to fit through) and it makes me weary about using it too much. mostly because i don't want to lose any of my stuff!!!

BUT MAN, THAT POCKET!!!!!

the green purse

this is the green purse i made the day after i made the purple purse. it's very big (i'll post the dimensions at a later date) i used it for school for a few days but it didn't quite work out right. can't pin-point exactly what's wrong with it, but it doesn't work as well as other school bags i have.

the material i used:
green fabric=corduroy left over from a jacket i made at buff state
plaidfabric=i bought thisfor a project at buff state where we had to make a pair of shorts, but the pattern had to match up at the seams. needless to say, i didn't buy enough extra to match the seems up, so this was just plain left over.

this is a side detail. i thought it would turn out more hole-y than it did. oh well.

this is a strap detail. it's where the strap is sewn onto the bag. i sewed the wavy design onto the strap as a means to stablize it more, but it's a good decoration as well.

one of the straps has a lace ruffle sewn onto the outside of it. this was meant to be sewn onto both straps, but on account of me not checking to see how much lace ruffle i had before sewing the one side, i ran out, and therefore this is how it ended up. in the end, i think it makes it more interesting. (and since the bag is identical on both sides and on account of me being anal retentive, it lets me know which side is the front-ashleigh you ought to appreciate this aspect of it.)

the other throw pillow

this is the other pillow. each image is on one side of the pillow.



these pillows are under the "knitting" categorie because i knit the image then i sewed it onto a piece of square black fabric. the knitting took longer than the sewing. i filled the pillows with filling from....michael's or joanne fabrics.



once i get my act together, i'm going to make more pillows for this series, which is supposed to be about the ups and downs of being in a relationship.

the purple purse

I made this purse one day when i was bored. i didn't have a pattern for it (it makes me feel stifled), so i had the idea in my head and made it up as went along:

it's been holding up pretty well-i use it almost every single day. but it has a few loose threads because the fabric is a loose weave, and my gold scaly belt (that i got from otterbine thrift store-thank's mom!) always catches the threads.

the shoulder strap and D rings are from a belt that i never wore, so i cut the belt to length and sewed it in place.

the fabric is just beautiful, i think. i got it from te salvation on 57-i was going to make a prom dress out of it!! hah! but it was two large curtains when i got it....i don't know where the rest of the material is!

prifile view with some loose threads hanging.