New Sewing Machine and First Purse!!

Somehow or another, the tension got all kinds of weird on our old kenmore sewing machine, and we just cannot fix it. After seeing what repair costs would be, even for something that simple, I just bought a new machine.

It's a Brother LX-3125. It has 14 stitches for me to figure out and does all kinds of cool things like button holes and zippers.

So to try it out I made Sydni (my daughter) a Pocahontas costume for a school report, very easy, all straight lines, which I can do when I concentrate.

But then I visited Craftster.org and well several hours later I had ideas, way too many ideas, which I then converted into a pattern for a carryall type bag/purse whatever.

It's about 7 inches tall and wide and roughly 3 inches deep. The fabric is quilting cotton in a plain black and this sponged look purple that I had a fat quarter of. There were supposed to be outside pockets on both sides but I only remembered once I got to the second side.

I used cotton webbing to make loops for an eventual strap. Notice the closure? Yeah kinda hard to see but it was my FIRST ZIPPER EVER! And not to shabbily done either.

The lining, I couldn't not do a lining, is another fat quarter I bought because it looked so good with that purple. I tried to make things easier on myself and sandwich my exterior, heavyweight sew in interfacing, and lining all together before constructing the bag. Now all I have to do is cover my seam allowances with the bias tape I used across the outer pocket.

I have to say for my first time doing more than sewing straight lines, it doesn't look too bad. Now if only I'd made it big enough for carrying my book, phone, ipod and other junk around I'd use it everyday.