My mom purchased some beautiful fabric from an interior designer who was closing shop. I was thinking of what I could make with it when I realized I had never made a structured purse before and because the fabric looked very nice and expensive the product could look legit.
Because I already had some plywood lying around I decided to use it for my purse skeleton. I measured out the widths and heights of my phone and other things I would keep in a purse. I then sketched and measured the pattern onto the wood. I wanted to bag to be bulky and hold its shape so I used sheets for each side instead of beams.
I cut the wood and used wood glue to attach the sides.
Next I purchased some dark red quilted fabric to line the outside and inside of the purse. I didn’t want the outside corners of the purse to hurt if they banged against me so I added the quilting to soften the blow. I added it in the inside so that it looked finished when I opened the bag and so that my objects wouldn’t tumble against the hard wood.
I realized the best way to utilize the fabric without creating much waste would be to replicate the pattern I used to measure the box as I designed it in my sketch.
I used this pattern by measuring out a long strip of fabric that wrapped around the box and then cut out two 6×6 inch squares that I would sew to the strip. This way, when I sewed the angles together, it would make a pouch.
I created a double box with the quilted fabric and then sewed them together with the wood in-between.
One of the sides would go into the other one to create a casing around the wooden box.
Then I created a box out of the nice fabric and and hand sewed it to the quilt.
I then added hardware and closures.
front
back
side
side
top
I wanted to add silver hardware, including safety pins, to pop out agains the red fabric. Also, the red fabric is kind of dark, cold, and mysterious, so I thought adding the silver embellishments would add to its ruff, dark aura.
