My sister made these. She started hand stitching (no sewing machine!) purses recently and made a purse for herself. And now her friends want to buy purses from her!
Here’s the first one she finished for her friend, Lyndsay. It’s one purse, but reversable! So either side could be the inside or outside. Two purses in one! ;) One side is orange, while the other side is rainbow. Check out the details, like the rainbow ribbon and the personal hand-stitched name! I’m impressed! The personalized stitched name is my favorite part! I can’t wait til she makes me one. heh I think she should open her own fashion line. ;)
How to make it:
1) I don’t have the patten, so I’m not exactly sure how she made the reversable part so nice and seamless. I do know she uses 4 layers of fabric and hand stitches them together on the three sides.
2) Then she carefully stitches the top part.
3) The she wrote with a fabric pencil the name, on both sides of the purse. And then hand stitch that.
4) Then she hand stitches the handles and add them to the purse.
5) Then she adds in all the final details (like the ribbon).
Good thing I took her to Walmart! They had a big selection of fabric and accessories for her to go wild with. She currently has an order for about 15 more purses so it’s going to be a while before she finishes all of them. In this case, her friend loves rainbows, so that’s how the colorful purse came about. ;)
How did this start? She made her own purse to carry her books and folders around school. When her friends saw it, they wanted to buy one too. Now she has more orders than she can handle right now. lol I want to make her a catalog / portfolio / scrapbook thingy! You know, a book with pages of the purses she designed and made. And if I could get her to take an action shot of the owner, it’d be so cool!
12/04/2005 at 9:02 pm Permalink
oh!! those purses are so beautiful!! i’m not really good with sewing. hope to learn someday. i myself just started knitting!!
13/04/2005 at 12:31 am Permalink
Wow your sister has a lot of patience! lol I don’t mind hand sewing but my hand gets cramped up after 30 mins of doing it. You should tell your sister to sell her bags on eBay or even Laundromatic hee hee =^_^= with “DIY” or something.
13/04/2005 at 11:41 pm Permalink
I gather she is a student . I must say the bag is just awsome.. I hope you can convince her to continue with this line … Many a business started out of a hobby as well as a need for something personal… She is a very talented person… Keepup the neat line … I like hand sewing , but at the moment I am into knitting with several projects on the needles now … what type of materials did she use ???
15/04/2005 at 6:13 am Permalink
Just beautiful and what a neat idea! I saw some reversible bags at Target, they looked pretty crummy compared to yours.
20/04/2005 at 6:55 pm Permalink
wow! too cute! she really needs to get herself a little web site, a simple shopping cart (paypal) and start selling online. I want one!
21/04/2005 at 11:57 pm Permalink
I’ll set up a website for her soon. She still has to fulfill about 20 more orders from her high school alone. hehe
22/04/2005 at 7:33 pm Permalink
HIGH SCHOOL! I assumed she was a college student! I’m very impressed. Have you introduced her to the sewing machine?
22/04/2005 at 9:24 pm Permalink
I’m shopping around for a decent sewing machine for her. She’s really wants one! :) She told me if she finished all her orders, she’d have enough money to buy one. But I think I’ll just one for her so she can finish her orders faster… heh I’m trying to find either a Singer or Brother one.