Out With The Old

This is my purse.
I bought it at the dollar store about 3 years ago. I didn't make it out of stuff I got at the dollar store--I bought it in the purse section. Before this, I had a wallet that usually hung out in the diaper bag with my dead cell phone. The funniest thing about this purse (aside from the fact that it lasted more than 3 years) is that every time I would walk into a fabric store, the cutter and the cashier would comment on how cute my purse was and ask if I made it. ---Nope, got it at the dollar store. About half the time, they would ask if I thought they had any more.

But then one day, I noticed that my totally awesome $1 purse was getting a little worn on the bottom corners. So, now that I am the craftiest person on the planet and can sew anything (yeah, right!) I decided to sew one. I saw a link to a tutorial on Homemade by Jill and decided to refigure it to make it a purse instead of a clutch. (I just added 3 inches to every dimension and a 3 inch strip on the bottom to make it a deeper bag. And I didn't have fusible fleece but I did have HeatNBond and some fleece--note to self, next time, iron the fleece first to shrink it before you put the HeatNBond on.) Well, the instructions say to sew 2 gathering stitches and gather to bottom part to fit the top part. Yeah, right! A layer of corduroy, fusing, fleece, and lining? No way was that gathering! So an inverted pleat it became. I love it! I put a loop of elastic inside to hold my keys so I don't have to dig around for them. I wish I had enough cord to make the strap out of that but oh well. I still like it!

And I didn't have to buy anything to make this. Now, I would only have to make about 300 more to use up all my fabric.