For Christmas, my husband got me one of the most thoughtful and wonderful gifts ever; something I had wanted for a very long time. A sewing machine! I had never sewn before in my life, so I was sooo excited to start using it but so terrified of messing something up (mainly the sewing machine itself). After playing around with it a bit on some scraps of fabric, I decided my first project would be a new purse. First, a little story about my old rainbow purse:

I bought rainbow purse at Target for a bank breaking $9 in 2003, so I’ve had this thing for 10 years! This is the one purse I’ve had for these many years, so parting with it was a big decision. It’s just a purse, you say? Yes, a normal person would probably say so. But I have a small attachment problem… heh heh. Anyhow, this old purse will sit in my closet until I decide what to do with it.

After I decided I wanted to make a purse (but before I found a pattern I liked… maybe not the best decision, but it worked out), I picked out some fabric at Hobby Lobby. As I mentioned before, I looove grey. I especially love grey paired up with yellow. Surprisingly, Hobby Lobby had lots of grey & yellow fabric and I ended up deciding on the pattern above with some plain grey for the purse’s lining.

I looked around at (free) purse patterns for quite awhile before I decided on one – Rae’s Buttercup Bag. The pattern is so cute – I love the pleats! It’s also simple enough for somebody who’s never sewn something before.

I did decide on-the-go to make a few adjustments to Rae’s pattern: I added some metal rings where the straps attach to the body, an inner pocket, and some extra fabric around the edges to add some depth to the purse’s body.

You can see that this new purse has already gotten a little worn – the strap is wrinkled and folded. I’m not sure how to avoid this (any tips?), but it happened with rainbow purse too. Soon I’m going to try tackling a matching billfold, but right now it’s down the list a bit in terms of projects. Regardless, we’ll see if I hold onto this purse for 10 years, hehe!