This purse will be made from a sleeve from a gray J. Crew sweater. I know, it seems like a sin to cut up a J. Crew sweater, but you make whatever sacrifices are needed to get the job done! I think I got this sweater at a thrift store in Tampa for about $1, so I don't feel so bad cutting it up.
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| Cut off sleeve - one purse coming up! |
So, for this purse, I will use a sleeve, my chic lining, a ring I took off an old purse and a purple zipper. I did not use the entire sleeve, just a portion of it. My chic lining is lining that I got at a yard sale for cheap and I'm using it on everything. The ring I got from a purse that I tore apart for the hardware, see Chunky Cuff Bangles post, and finally a purple zipper that I had in my craft stash.
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| Rotary cut the sweater |
I will use the left portion of the sleeve that you see in the above pic. I also will use one of the little strips for something that is coming up. The rest went back into the sweater scraps bag.
I squared-up the sleeve part but left it sewn as it was. I turned it inside-out and sewed the bottom closed.
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| Sweater and lining |
Then I measured the sweater part and sewed a matching lining section. I turned the sweater back so the right side was out and then turned the lining inside-out and fitted it into the sweater. I then used a zig-zag stitch to attach the lining to the sweater. I then hand stitched a stitch in each corner from the inside of the purse to anchor the lining inside the purse; to keep it in place.
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| The lining is in! |
I figured I would adorn this purse with a zipper rosette. Using zippers for fashion and not for zipping has been in trend lately so I wanted to try something with it. I went searching online and came across a tutorial on the zipper rosette. There are several blogs out there dedicated to crafting, so I chose to make mine look like the one from Scraps to Beauty by Zandra. My zipper was not that long so I took it apart and sewed the two parts to form one long zipper half. (Technically one whole zipper could make two zipper rosettes).
This is where my little sweater strip comes into play. By following Zandra's tutorial, it actually started looking like a rosette!
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| Stitch each step |
I had a brain freeze a few times trying to ensure that the zipper teeth were facing the right way. But, I ended up finishing it up so it looked nice.
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| How cute!! Thanks Zandra! |
Now, the large ring is going to be the handle on my purse. I folded over the front edge to cover a portion of the ring and pinned it down. I hand sewn the flap down. This sounded easier than it was, trust me!
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| Ring, ring...who's there? |
Once I attached the flap over the ring, I needed to figure out how to close this purse. As it currently was, it was flapping wide open. I ended up using a large eye-hook. At first I put it on backwards, so I unstitched it then did it right. I then trimmed the gray sweater strip that held my rosette and hand stitched the rosette onto the front of the purse.
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| Completed sweater purse |
The closure on this purse may need to be reconsidered. I was sober and was having a hard time latching it, so if I was inebriated in anyway, there is no way this was closing. I will work on that with my friend to see what she wants to do. She sews too, so she may have already fixed it.
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| Modeling the purse |
Here is a pic of the sweater purse being modeled at the birthday/housewarming party. This is also the party where I wore my diamond studded Chunky Cuff Bracelet that got some attention (I'm the one in green). I cheated on my no-booze diet and had a few appletinis to celebrate. We had a blast!!
1 comment:
Are those models getting paid? As always, very nice work.
Crissta
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