A lovely new makeup purse

You may be noticing a theme – I am currently really enjoying quick, little pieces. It’s also good, as it means I am getting some of the kits worked and out of that box! I will have to get back onto the bigger projects again soon, but one of the great things about embroidery is that it is so easy to have multiple projects on the go, and depending on your mood you can swap and change between them.

This was a kit from Inspirations Magazine issue 58, published several years ago, so it’s been in the ‘to do’ pile for a while! I changed things up a little bit from the original pattern. The main motif, which is repeated three times (isn’t it divine?), follows the pattern. The extra little buds are my addition, and I decided to repeat the pattern on both sides of the purse (thanks to the advice of some lovely ladies on Facebook!), and I’m happy with how it looked when this embroidery was finished.

One of the reasons (I think!) I hadn’t made this up before, is that it requires using the sewing machine! For no reason other than lack of experience, I am not a confident user of the sewing machine. When we first moved to the UK a few years ago, I bought a really basic one which more than suits me, and is more than adequate for my needs. I just need to get more confident at it, and that’s not got to happen with it sitting in the box!

Because the fabric had been sitting in the kit for more years than was intended, it needed a good iron to get the creases out. After cutting the pieces, the first step was to make the scallops. If I were to do it again, I’d neaten the edges as the first step, as boy did the fabric fray! This is where my inexperience really came through, as I got points rather than scallops! I hadn’t even realised this until after I had started the embroidery (a tad embarrassing) but I decided to just go with it!

I haven’t done bullion knots for a long time, so it was a good little project to get back into the swing of them. I’m one of those people who quite enjoy working bullion knots (even though they don’t always work!) – I know they tend to be a love or hate relationship with some embroiderers! My first rose wasn’t quite right, but after that they seemed to work out OK.

I decided to not draw the design on the fabric, and chose to do it all by sight. On the whole this didn’t pose any problems, although my little granitos could have been more identical had I drawn some guidelines in. I admit, I was quite pleased with how things were going when I had my two sides embroidered.

Next up was the intimidating bit – actually putting it together, with a machine! All in all it worked out reasonably well, and I want to actually do some more so I don’t even think about it in the future, and just power on as I would with the embroidery!

Tacking in the wadding was nice and easy (no surprise there), but putting in the zip? I’m not sure why, but I have always struggled to read and understand patterns, so my approach is to read it, not completely understand, pin it, see if that looks right, then either re-pin or tack and sew. Let’s just say I get there in the end! Thankfully this was straight forward enough, and I worked out how to sew in the zip, sew in the lining, and then the easy part of putting it all together.

And here it is!

The last step was to make a beautiful tassel (aren’t they fun to make?), and attach it to zip, creating a glamorous makeup purse!

I’m quite pleased with the end result. Yes, some of my bullions could be better, and some of the construction could be a little neater, but on the whole, I’m very happy with the result!