finished making Sweet Remembrance. I started out with the Belle pattern by my friend Geta Grama from Romanian Quilt Studio. I made the Amelie bag last March and you can see it here on this post. They are both great patterns. I chose a pink poke-a-dot and green morie upholstery fabrics, plus the green and pink trim. I machine quilted the poke-a-dot fabric in a feather design and the green fabric in a diamond cross hatch.
This time I wanted a smaller purse so reduced the Belle bag by 75% for starters. I did take more out of the width of the pattern too….in hind sight this was not a good idea. I don’t mean the shrinking the pattern but the extra 2” I took out of the width. OK, here is the bag as it was originally made.
The outside front has two pockets – love the curved look. This came straight from the pattern but I did change the backside by adding another pocket to hold my cell phone. I used the trim on either side of that pocket. There is a zippered pocket at the top that came straight from the pattern.
Now take a look at the finished purse/bag. See how narrow it looks at the top? Way, way too narrow so guess what I did? I took the entire thing apart and remade it to more my liking.
First I quilted the strip then trimmed it down to 2” and I quilted strips for the lining too. I then cut the front and back purse/bag sections down 3” shorter than I originally had cut it. I also straightened the sides of of the purse (it was tapered before) then added the strips to the straightened sides. This made the whole purse a little wider. You can see the zippered pocket in the lining on one side and the pocket on the other side. I stitched Velcro onto the strap and the pocket as I just hate it when my precious stuff falls out of my purse!
I really like the way the bag turned out as the proportions are better now. If I wouldn’t have taken that extra 1in. pleat out of the original 75% pattern I probably would not have had to do the remodel job on it in the first place. Another thing I did was stitch the top trim down to 3/4”. I really like this shoulder bag a lot now.
Happy Quilting,
Lynn
1 comment:
It looks great, Lynn! The small pocket on the back is a great addition! I love the two color strap! You made a great messenger bag.
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