Ruffled Purse in Progress

I started making this ruffled purse a little over a week ago.  I picked an Alaskan Fireweed fabric as my primary fabric for the ruffles with a green for the outside and a blue for the inside. Some people picked two different fabric to do their ruffles, one for each side, but my fabric is multicolored so my ruffles are all different.

First thing was to cut 64 squares roughly 6.25" square and then trace the ruffle template onto 32 of them and I was ready for my first class, last Saturday. 

In class we sewed on the outside edge of four ruffles, stacking the squares right sides together and then cut our ruffles out, flipped them to wrong sides together and pressed. Next was to top stitch. Once that was done we pressed the lightweight interfacing to our purse fabric and cut that into strips.  Next came the pinning stage and when I say pinning I mean lots, and lots, and lots, and lots of pinning. each ruffle had to be pinned to a strip, one on each end and sewn down.

When I came home on Saturday and Sunday, and today, since I subbed on Monday I continued sewing, cutting, pressing, top stitching and pinning.

Once you had to strips sewn with two ruffles on each you pinned two strips together with the ruffles all on the left.  So with 17 strips, 16 of which had 2 ruffles pinned to them, then sewn on you pinned and sewed them in to sets of two strips with ruffles on the left.

I love how the fabric I chose for the ruffles has so much color variety.

Once you had 8 sets of two strips with ruffles you pinned and sewed them into sets of 4 strips. Then pinned and sewed them into sets of 8 strips.

The bottom of the purse.

 Once again you pinned and sewed them together and added the last strip on the side with the ruffle on the outside.




This is the point I am at now. Here is my purse ready for class on Saturday, where we will be making the lining and pockets, adding a magnetic snap, tabs and a wooden handle. I plan to cut out my lining so I am ready for class.

I love how my ruffles look.

In the interim I am going to start a second bag as a gift. I am hoping to have it to the same point by class on Saturday. Though I think I will use a draw string closure on this one, just so I can make sure I do it right while in class.