Fully Finished Gallery August 2021

I’m linking up with Rachel for the Fully Finished Gallery this month to share with you the Italian Peacocks Purse by Giulia Punti Antichi!

I just love how it turned out. The peacock purse frame was the way to go. I think it goes really well. I have not been able to find a chain for the frame yet. If I can’t I might make one from corded DMC but I think I prefer a chain.

I lined it with some of the silk my husband brought back from Thailand several years ago. He had quite an adventure going to a fabric shop while he was in Bangkok for work to buy several half yards for me. The ladies in the shop all said he should get enough to make a dress! I’m not sure he could explain that I wanted it for needlework finishing. All the same it is nice to have a supply of several colors of beautiful silk to use for special things. It doesn’t get more special than this purse!

This is the first lined purse I have ever made. I learned a great deal about construction. It was not easy, especially sewing the bag onto the purse frame. I don’t keep any kind of stitch journal except for this blog so more for my notes than anything I want to write down some of the key lessons from this project:

1. Silk is very fray-y. It would have been good to cut it a little more generously at the seam where I had to access the inside of the bag because I lost at least 1/2″ to fray. It would be a VERY good idea to serge or bind the edges of the silk lining fabric in some way before handling it so much. The whole time I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough seam to make the lining go all the way to the bottom of the purse. It worked out but I was so frustrated with the fraying. It kept getting caught up in the stitching which was hard enough on its own!
2. Using a bit of stiff interfacing on the section where the bag is sewn to the frame was a GOOD idea. It held the purse flaps into the frame just like I hoped.
3. Drawing a line on the wrong side of the fabric to stitch along made sewing it on the machine a lot easier than trying to sew a seam by using the edge of the cut fabric. I am always going to do that from now on, especially on things that are not square.
4. Taking a huge amount of care with redrawing the purse shape to make a new pattern to suit my own project, instead of trusting the one that came in the kit, was worth it. This was not as hard as I thought it would be because I borrowed my son’s light board, and it paid off by making the shape of the purse fit the stitching really well.
5. But NEXT time, I understand how frames fit onto bags. When you stitch the top flaps, you start just below where the edges of the frame hit. That way when you stitch the pouch, and then put the frames on, there will not be a big gap under the frame hinge. I had to hand stitch the sides of the purse bag about 1 1/2″ on each side to meet up to the bottom of the frame. It worked out fine, but I guess this is something you learn from doing!
6. I did not need to glue the purse on to the frame even a little bit. The stitches actually hold it on just fine. I was really worried about that. (I didn’t use glue, don’t worry, but I bought some!)

I am not an octopus so taking pictures of the process was not really feasible! If I do another lined bag maybe I will write a proper tutorial!

If you’ve read this far, you get a gold star for today and I hope it was helpful! And now you can head back to Rachel’s to see the other finished this month!