Butterfly Sling Purse

She's done!!! even though I almost gave up and crushed her in her chrysalis. This project ran a whole gamut of emotions - from receiving the pattern (top of the very first roller coaster hill, WHOO HEE! FUN!) to despair over my fabric choices (plunge down said hill, OH NO! What have I done?). But I have persevered, would not say totally successfully, and the butterfly has emerged -

 

 

When I first received this pattern, I was so excited.  It looked like a challenge (and it was), it looked like fun, I immediately thought of some fabric I had that I thought would be great.  I could not find that particular piece, but ran across this and thought it would also be great.  Pulled out some coordinating pieces and immediately cut it out. And almost as immediately started second guessing myself that those don't really coordinate as well as I thought in natural light.  After getting DD's second opinion decided they would work and proceeded to finish.

 

Best laid plans and all that - this main fabric turned out to be some type of double-cloth, which raveled like it's life depended on it and would not hold a press. So the ID holder and the slip pocket were ripped, er I mean, carefully unpicked and redone with a quilting fabric that I found and thought played nicely with the other two. This time when I did the ID holder, I measured the finished measurements, outside and inside, and cut a small frame (sort of like matting a picture) from Peltex to fold my fabric around.  Then I decided that the zipper pocket needed to be the same fabric as the slip pocket and the ID holder so it was ripped oops, again I mean carefully unpicked and redone.

 

 

 

The card organizers went pretty much as planned.

 

 

I never could get the corners nice and square like the pattern picture.  Totally not the patterns fault, it was an operator inefficiency.  Like I said the fabric was hard to work with, but the main problem was that I tend to check out the pictures/illustrations and think I know what to do.  So the zippers were not trimmed as closely as they should have been.  All the corners look like this, so they match, and they were ripped and resewn 2-3 times to get this, then I actually read the directions, decided I was not ripping again, so good enough. Have highlighted this in my directions for the next make, they will be square!

 

 

One more finished picture -

 

 

 

The casualties of my war -

 

 

I should also note that I had issues applying the purse lock, again very good directions, but I need better tools especially the one punch small holes.

 

In conclusion, this pattern is a challenge that brought up some skills that I need improve.  It's very small, perfect for traveling in my opinion, and a great sew.

 

Happy Sewing, Suzanne