I have decided that October is “Get Your Crafty Self In Gear and Start Making Those Holiday Gifts” Month here at the Refashionology blog. Mainly because that is what I have to do myself. So to start us off, Iam offering up ideas to create holiday gifts from rescued vintage linens.
I buy up vintage embroidered tablecloths and dresser scarves that I find at thrift stores. These usually have stains from years of use that can’t be removed. It breaks my heart to see the beautiful hand embroidery on these items go to waste, so I like to try to use the unstained parts in other items, like this purse. I used pieces from a very stained embroidered tablecloth, an embroidered dresser scarf, and two different pillowcases to create it.
I used a pattern and tutorial I found on Angie’s Quality Time blog for her Dresden Petal Handbag. You’ll need to download and print the PDF of the only pattern piece, her modified dresden petal.
I am not a quilter, but this piecing of the purse was easy. The hardest part was probably pressing all the little seams open after sewing together the pieces. It made a cute little purse. Here’s how I did it:
I downloaded the PDF pattern piece from Angie’s Quality Time blog, printed it, and used it to cut
14 pieces from various fabrics to make up the front and back of the purse. I used unstained parts of the tablecloth shown above, parts of a dresser scarf, and parts of 2 different pillowcases, one yellow and one
blue.
I decided on their placement, 7 pieces for each side, and sewed them together using 1/4″ seams, Then pressed the seam allowances open.
Here you see both front and back pieced together and pressed. What you don’t see is that I added fusible
interfacing to the back of each piece. Angie put fusible fleece on hers, but I didn’t have any, for one thing, and another, I didn’t really want this purse to have a quilted look. It was fine with the interfacing.
I forgot to show this part, but Angie shows it on her tutorial- I took a round dinner plate and traced around it to make the curve at the top, then cut on the traced line to make 2 small and 2 large pieces. Hang onto the small pieces, they become our pockets!
I cut two lining pieces from the yellow pillowcase fabric using one of the purse pieces for the pattern. Cut one lining piece for each pocket piece as well.
I sewed the lining piece to the pocket piece (cut down to make a smaller width pocket if you like, I took a segment off of each end for mine) right sides together, leaving small end open to turn. I trimmed the seams and corners, turned right side out and pressed, turning in open edge. I pinned them where I wanted the pockets to be on the lining and stitched both sides and bottom. The photo doesn’t show this, but I also
added magnetic purse hardware above each pocket at this point.
I decided on clear lucite handles for my little purse, and made small tabs from the lining fabric to connect them to the bag. I made mine about 1/4″ wide (finished size), but be aware of the size of the d ring on your handles so they will fit. I cut a 1″ wide strip, pressed it in half, and then pressed the edges inside to get a 1/4″ wide tab. I topstitched it closed and cut each about 2″ long. Be careful with placement though, because you don’t want your tabs to be too long. Mine ended up being about 1/2″ from fold to sewn edge.
Once I got my handles and tabs attached, I put both purse pieces right sides together and stitched both sides and bottom.
I trimmed the seams, and opened up the corners and stitched across to give the bottom of the purse some depth as shown above. I did trim the corners off, even though it doesn’t show in the photo. I repeated the same steps with the lining, except that I left a space in the bottom seam of the lining open to turn once its sewn onto the purse. It has to be large enough to fit the handles through!
I turned the purse right side out, and placed it inside the lining, having right sides together. I pinned the top seam and sewed making sure to keep the handles out of the way. I trimmed the seam, and using the opening at the bottom of the lining section, I turned the purse right side out, placing the lining inside. I pressed the top seam, and topstitched it close to the edge. And that was it.
I think it is adorable. Its a tiny little purse, a little smaller than I thought it would be, but Angie did say that you could resize the Dresden Petal Piece any size you want. I will make this again a bit bigger, maybe with fabric that I will quilt like she did. It’s a quick and easy purse to make for a gift for someone special. So get going!
