My first experiment in building a structured purse.
I used the Dorothy/Evelyn pattern from Emma Brennan’s Making Vintage Bags. Charming bags and good instructions — a lovely book.
The pink boucle fabric jumped off the shelf at me in JoAnn’s one afternoon. It seemed like something that should be made into a Chanel jacket but I can’t wear that much pink and I have no occasion to wear a “suit” so…
I already had the lining, and the button was in the miscellaneous box. I had though I wanted a pink velvet bow — there’s one in the book — but finding pink short pile velvet turned out to be a fool’s errand. So the aqua button stepped in. I think it works well.
The experimental part was the interfacing. I wanted structure so I used a heavy craft weight interfacing Pellon — Peltex 70. Imaging something that is almost like packing felt — and really stiff. It’s easy enough to work with, and gives a nice plump feeling to the purse and keeps the body from collapsing but… it’s wonky. I couldn’t figure out just how or why but the result was not pleasing.
Leave it to the DH to make sense of my intuitions. The problem is similar to “oil-canning” in sheet metal. Sort of… (You can find the wierdest stuff on the internet!)
In this case the problem is that the Pelmet does not roll gracefully, it buckles instead, giving the wonky top edge that I didn’t like.
After messing about with a piece of leftover Pelmet I’ve concluded that there is no way to make it roll smoothly over a radius as small as the top edge of a clutch. I can see where I would want to use Pelmet for something like a bucket tote, or the sides of a bolster clutch but it isn’t the right material for this project.
Ho hum, on to the next one…
