QUILTED PURSELETE

With the pressure of a deadline past, I’m still sewing away at some of my holiday gifts. This is actually one of the few gifts that was done on time. I’ve had my eye on Fig Tree Quilt’s ‘Purselete‘ pattern for ages now, so I was pretty happy when I got Andrew’s mom for Kris Kringle. I thought this would make a really cute clutch or make-up bag for her.

I made a point of visiting Leather & Sewing Supply Depot to stock up on zippers just before the holidays. I have some ideas for future zipper projects, so I wanted to make sure I had a good arsenal ready for when inspiration struck. The rows and rows of boxes of zippers in every size and colour are pretty fun to browse. I left with a large handful of metal zippers in various colours and lengths. This project calls for a 9″ zipper and I found a beautiful cream zipper with brass teeth. It has a rounded brass zipper pull which is especially cute. (and unusual)

The pattern suggests either quilting your outer pieces to batting or just basting in some interfacing. I wanted to try out some quilting since the pieces are fairly small and I felt it would be manageable. I was not confident enough to try doing free motion quilting, but opted instead to do large curvy circular lines that echo the pattern on the fabric. I do like the texture it gave to the finished purselete.

After the quilting, the construction of the pattern was fairly straight forward. If you’ve made a zippered pouch before, this pattern will be familiar with some great new tricks and details to add. I especially like that the side has an inverted pleat. The finished purselete is larger than I expected (visually), but is a great size to carry the essentials. I’d love to try to make a smaller version of this pattern as well, perhaps with a 7″ zipper (or even smaller). I’ll be making more purseletes in the future, I think it’s perfect as a gift.