47 Purses in the Mail - and My Reward

Combined with a few purses done in August, I sent 47 purses to Sew Powerful this week.  It is a great feeling of accomplishment and with such a great payoff.  There was a team from Sew Powerful in Zambia last week, and they posted pictures of young ladies receiving their purses.  Go to SewPowerful.org for these pictures. Along with those smiles were good reports from the various components of Sew Powerful - sewing, farming, soap making, etc.  This community-driven initiative supported by the Sew Powerful army makes me know that what I do, along with hundreds of other purse makers, is important.

Devoting an entire month to just purses means putting aside projects that I want to do.  And Ive been wanting to make my way through not only the fabrics I have but also the projects set aside that I've been meaning to get to.  The fabrics in the bag below were set aside for a different bag.  But suddenly I saw them on the FIKA Tote by Noodlehead.  This pattern was new to me, and it has so many different pieces.  My husband does word puzzles.  I do fabric puzzles, and this was like a monster 3-d puzzle.  But I loved how it turned out and of course want to make another. 

This bag is essentially 19" wide by 15" tall and 5' wide.  One side of the bag has two slip pockets.  The smaller pocket in darker grey (with my phone peeping out) is the last of a fabric that I have loved.  Holly and/or Sarah turned me onto it.  I tried to find more, and all I could locate was this lighter grey matching fabric.  Against the grey/brown grunge, I think both are striking. 

The reverse side of the bag has one big zippered pocket. The foundation of both sides as well as the gusset is Soft and Stable, which means this bag can stand on its own.  The handles are lightly padded with fusible fleece.

The bag has a recessed zipper and enough interior pockets to confuse the best of us.  What I think I like most about this bag and pattern is the final step.  Instead of leaving a seam in the lining open and birthing the whole bag through the lining, the interior and exterior are simply sewn together as they are meant to be and then bound.  I think the result is excellent and very polished.

Before I started on the Fika Tote, I worked on this years-old Jinny Beyer tote bag. The small panel above on the left is paper-pieced, not a way that I prefer to work.  But look at the precision!  There's another identical panel under it.  All the colorful leftovers from the paper piecing were kind of big, so I sewed them together.  There are two big sets of panels.  And wait!  There's more.  Look at the skinny colorful strips on the right.  All these bits - big and small - need to be featured.  I don't know how or what, but I'm thinking...

Next?  Hmmm.....