a lime-green purse for other daughter

While I was photographing older daughter's purse, before wrapping and mailing it to her, younger daughter, Melissa, told me how much she would love to have one of her own too.  She lives here locally, so we made a trip to the fabric store (i.e. Wal-Mart's 'it' in our small town!) and she looked at everything.  We were about to leave empty-handed when she spotted a lime-green almost-lineny type of fabric, and a black quilting cotton with tiny red cherries and lime-green leaves that she liked.  She also liked the idea of red zippers so a handful was purchased.

She listed all the features she would like to have in a 'perfect' purse.  Novita's Reversible Bag Pattern was once again made, and again, because of all the features added, this bag is not reversible.  Melissa's birthday was in the first week of October, so this bag was made up 'in secret' to be wrapped and given as a 'surprise'. 

She wanted an outer zipper pocket, below.  I made the pocket bag out of the lining fabric because I was afraid anything else might be seen from the outside because of the open weave of the lime-green outer fabric.  As a bonus, I was able to pull out a little of the contrasting fabric of the pocket bag before I stitched/top-stitched everything together.  

Inside, she wanted a pocket for her cell phone and a zipper pocket.

Out of one piece of fabric I made a 'faux' 2-pocket pocket by adding a small pleat to one side and another where I thought would work for her cell phone.  Before I stitched it in, I used a decorative stitch on my machine in red thread.

This made a 'flat' pocket to the left, and a 'pleated' pocket to the right for ease in getting the cell phone in and out.  Note to self - be sure to tack the top seams down very well as with the first use, the middle seam popped right out at the top.  I hand-tacked all three seams down well at that point.

 A red zipper interior pocket, magnetic snap closures and label and this purse was done.

Oh, I top-stitched the exterior in red thread holding my breath the whole time because my top-stitching is usually not all that great.  I used black thread in the bobbin.  This was the best my top-stitching has ever looked.  

It's been nice to learn new sewing techniques and improve my sewing skills with a project like these purses.  And now both my daughters each have a new cute purse!