Lavender Purses Abound!

This must be the week of lavender. I think it's because my mother mentioned that she hoped to plant lavender this year in her garden. Whatever the reason, it seems that the sewing bug has bitten me, and lavender is what I'm picking to work on!
This is the first lavender purse that I finished. It's made out of lavender silk, and rose tinted linen. The front features inverted pleating that has been top stitched down. Then I ran 6 strands of yarn down the channels that the pleating formed, and pulled them up to form a type of gathering. At that point, that was going to be the end of it, but once I had it sewn in purse form, I was unhappy with the results. So back to the cutting board, and after lots of scissors work and measuring, two ruffles were added onto the lavender silk in the linen that you see above. Directly below is a closer photograph of the ruching/trapunto detail that I fondly call ruchunto or trapuching, depending on the mood!
This is a close up of the macrame belt that I repurposed to form the strap of the purse. It's really neat and intricate, and has these cute little wooden beads interspersed throughout! I've been scouring the thrift shops for neat little belts to use in the making of my purses, and have been lucky in finding some really neat ones!
All of that is well and good. However, the best part of this purse is the antique glass button. The purse closes with a really quaint ribbon loop/button closure, and I was able to find the most precious little glass button for it! It always reminds me of my little sister when I find a pretty button. My grandmother was quite the seamstress when she was younger, and she would sew us the prettiest dresses for special occasions. One time, after working so hard on our dresses and adding flounces and laces and petticoats, my sisters exclamation of happiness was so cute.. she thought the button to be the prettiest part!


The next lavender purse I made was finished out today. It is huge. And I'm not even joking. I think that a person could use this as a stylish diaper bag instead of the huge bags that mothers usually carry. It is made out of an upcycled felted wool sweater, and is completely lined. Inside are 6 roomy pockets sewn onto the lining, three on each side. This purse will definitely hold everything anyone would need to carry with them. I like working with the felted wool, but I can only do so many of them at one time. Because of the nature of the fabric, it doesn't lend itself to a lot of different looks, so it can get a little tedious sewing them over and over again. I will probably hold off on making the felted wool purses once the end of May comes, because I don't imagine people will want to carry a wool purse around in the summer (although if you work in one of those freezing office buildings, you might)!