Purse finished! At last!

Don't the days speed past when you have a puppy and other things to distract you?  

If I were a brilliant or organised mama for the In the Frame Purse Swap I would have finished my purse ages ago and would have sent it off at the beginning of the swap posting window, however it turns out that I am as big a prevaricator as ever and have left everything till the last minute!

Ah well I cannot change the habits of a lifetime I suppose but I hope the wait will be worth it for my partner.

I decided early on to go with big balls for my partner and that got me making the baguette purse designed by Lisa Lam from her kit!  

I liked it but thought the purse frame could cope with a bigger purse - more bang for those bucks if you like!   Well this started me playing and trying to see how to make a puffy purse but bigger to fit this frame.  

In the meantime I played with hexagons and star stitching on my front and backside!   Painful believe me!  I added compressed foam ( from lovely Lisa Lam's u-handbag website) and stitched in cotton perle through both layers. 

I got those done in good time but still hadn't quite got the pattern shape right!  Oh no tragedy in the making??  Well what would you do?  Go back to a pattern that works of course - made by an expert like Lisa and work from there!   So I did go back to the baguette pattern and enlarged it !  Then I made a prototype just to check it was working and this is what I made!  Could be ready for next year's Fat Quarterly Retreat??

Taking my new pattern I tried to fit it to my worked front and back  - big oops!  They didn't seem to fit.  Lots of frustration but later a bit of clarity - I would just add more fabric in the right place!  It worked, not without birthing pains, but here it is...

Big and mouthy for easy access - I can imagine some stitching project stored in here - different balls of cotton perle perhaps, all easily seen ....

It took quite a while to pick my lining fabrics but I hope I got them right.  The fabric in the middle just seemed to echo the stars on the outside of the purse!

This is the quiet side of my purse  - a lone stitched star surrounding a hexy....

This is the loud side - a rainbow coloured ring of hexies with a star stitched  inside.  I am happy with the result and hope my partner will be too!

What about the extra you ask?  Well, that is finished too - in fact that was finished first and took quite a while to make but you will just need to wait as I think it gives too much away to my partner!