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UR Priceless Coin Purse Blog Hop

11/13/2012

Hello! Thanks for stopping by my blog today! This is the last day of the UR Priceless Coin Purse Blog Hop, and I am happy to say that I am one of the participants. I signed up for this particular blog hop because I have never tackled a "frame" pouch or purse and really wanted to give it a try. This was a great way to get my feet wet and to join along with tons of really creative participants!

I wanted to make sure and thank Madame Samm over at Sew We Quilt and Katherine over at Sew Me Something Good for hosting, organizing and providing/designing the pattern for this lovely blog hop.

This is my only finished one (at the moment) and I am quite pleased with how it turned out! For my first frame pouch, I think it is quite cute, and was really a lot easier than I thought it would be. I started with some tiny half square triangles that I had saved from a previous project, stitched them together and created the front panel for this pouch. I believe the hst measured 1.25" before they were stitched together, so you can see they are quite small. After I created this piece, I ironed on the fusible batting and then machine quilted it. I then echoed the quilting on the back panel of the pouch, just to tie the whole thing together. Stitching together the pieces of this pouch was really easy, but I will say the size of this pouch is pretty small (a 3" frame) so it was more challenging than something larger. My experience sewing Barbie clothing from my childhood days came in handy here for sure!

What is up with all the fuzz on this thing?

I used a Liberty of London print for the interior of the bag, and continued the color scheme on the inside. I also wanted to use a busy print on the interior to in essence hide the stitching that does show from hand stitching on the frame. I think I was pretty successful in this aspect. Can you see the stitching? It is there, and it isn't that neat or pretty. Look hard and I bet you can spot it, it really is a hot mess in there, which is the only real downfall to these hand stitched frames. But honestly, I prefer not having to use glue, so you win some, you lose some.

I wanted to mention the hand sewn metal frame process. This was my first time doing this and I was really unsure as to how it would work out in the end, but honestly it fit much better than I ever would have imagined. A near perfect fit, I was impressed. I wasn't sure how to tackle it, so I just stuffed the top in the frame as much as I could and started stitching in the middle, and continued outwards to the sides, making sure the pouch was centered on the frame. It worked great, I used a medium needle with a big eye, and once you got the hang of it, it really went pretty quickly. Though it wasn't a perfect process. I started with a navy blue Pearl Cotton size 8, was almost finished with my first side and the needle pierced the thread wrong and broke it. No way to fix it other than to start over, take out the stitches and redo it. Before I started over I tested the thread I was using (by yanking it really hard) and realized it just wasn't strong enough for this application. Not having any other navy blue thick thread on hand I decided to quadruple up regular sewing thread. So that is what I did. Then once the frame was completely sewn on, I went back with doubled up thread and stitched the whole thing a second time for extra security. This wasn't ideal, but did allow for me to use a needle with a smaller eye, thus making the stitching process easier. Even with this one hang up, I think the pattern is great and made a cute little coin pouch.

I have another one almost finished, but alas had to go and get sick and wasn't able to finish it on time, bummer. Oh well, I'll show it off once I have it finished.