Sew Cute – Scripture Bag & Hair Clip

Life can sure sneak up on you. One day, your cranking out an heirloom blessing gown fashioned from an old wedding dress for your new little niece…

…and the next day she’s all grown up and ready to get baptized! What’s a long-distance Auntie to do? I really wanted to make sure Miss Cute knew I was thinking of her on her special day. Truth be told, I needed to make something girly. All these boys around here make it hard to be girly sometimes.

I was digging through the boxes in my basement and came a giant mass of cream satin. I realized the satin was the underskirt of the Jessica McClintock wedding gown that I’d used to make Cutie’s blessing gown.I liked the symmetry of using that fabric for something for her baptism.

I’ve seen all the pretty, singed-edge flowers floating around Blogland, so I gave it a whirl.

I had a hard time taking a good picture of the flower. I had some cream netting that I used between layers. I cut three sizes of circles, singed the edges and layered and sewed through the middle. I used a leftover fresh-water pearl that I had from a necklace I made. Some crystal beads were also sewn in to add a little shimmer-shimmer.

I cut a piece of felt that I had and threaded it through a hair clip.

I hot glued the flower onto the felt and Miss Cute had a new hair pretty. Here she is in all her sass ‘n frass modeling it for me.

I love this girl!

I also wanted to make a scripture bag/purse for her.  I started with the Placemat Scripture Bag/Purse tutorial from Someday Crafts.

The basic construction of my purse is identical to Someday Craft’s tutorial, but I had to dial it back a step. Owing to the fact that there are no cute placemats for sale in my town, I made a “placemat” using one of my placemats as a pattern and an old wool blanket. The blanket originally gave his life for Harley, the Grade-Saving-I-Won’t-Graduate-If-I-Fail-This-Class Manatee.

(Baby Girl is SOOOOOOO Lucky to have me for a Momma)!

 

Thanks to Harley (he has Harley Davidson buttons for his eyes, hence the name), I had some wool that was perfect for a bag. I bought 3 fat quarters of fabric from Joann’s.

Here’s how mine went down:

Using some Wonder Under I ironed onto the fabric, I cut the letter out using my Silhouette.

I then peeled off the backing from the letter and ironed it onto the placemat and zig-zagged around the edges. I figured out where the bottom of the bag would be and wrote Miss Cute’s name in chalk on that section.

I sewed her name onto the bag in a light lavendar. Miss Cute’s favorite color is purple, so I tried to use as much purple for accents as I could.

Next, I cut the fat quarters into strips. Some were bigger than the others. I used the bigger ones on the back of the purse since it had more room on the back.

I folded the edges of the strips into the middle and ran a gathering stitch (longest stitch) down the middle.

It’s kind of hard to tell from the picture, but the edges overlap in the middle. I gathered up the strips and did a swirly pattern on the placemat. I tried to match the edges so when the bag was sewn together, the same color would continue on the back.

Using some cord I had in my stash, I made handles for the bag. I used hot glue to attach the cord to the fabric, but then left an edge open so I could do a blanket stitch edge along the seam.

 

I sewed the handle onto the bag with embroidery floss. I hot glued along the very top of the bag behind the handle to give it some support and to hide the open cord in the back.

 

Here’s the final bag.

 

 

Baby Girl was able to drive up for Miss Cute’s special day.

Cost Breakdown:

Satin, Netting, Felt, Pearl, Beads, Hair clip – FREE – Stash on hand

Wool, Wonder Under, Embroidery floss, Cord – FREE – Stash on hand

3 Fat Quarters - $5.30

Total Cost - $5.30

Total Project Time – About 3 hours (There was hand sewing involved)

Suesan