Heidi's Purse

Heidi is on a "Mama, let's sew something" kick. Today she wanted a purse. A soft fuzzy purse. Fleece ought to fit the bill. But looking through my stash, we didn't find any. Then Heidi saw this wavy chenille. "Oooh, that one, Mommy. Please!" For the liner, she picked a toile-type dark pink on white. Size-wise, we decided it should be around the size of her doll diaper bag, 8"x6"x3", though she did want to edit one thing: "that shtrap it too long!" So we designed her purse strap to be a shorter 27".

With a larger hand guiding her own, Heidi did a surprisingly good job cutting the straight lines, considering the size of my big ol' fiskars shears compared to the size of her little bitty hand. (I thought it would be cute to follow the contours of the chenille for the bottom of the flap, so I cut that part.) And whoa, when I started pinning it together without her help! In Heidi's mind, "sewing" is pinning things together. Or more accurately, sewing is wadding a piece of fabric into a ball and then impaling it with as many pins as you can make stick into it. So anyway, with me holding the fabrics together, she able to put the pins in, not at all sure that 3 pins per side would be anywhere near enough! Once at the machine, she stood sentry at my side, pressing down the reverse lever at the start and end of each seam. "When can I use the machine?" she of course asked. Hmm, that's a good question. I'd ask for comments about that, but that would be assuming someone other than me reads blog. : )

Start to finish: about 1 1/2 hours? Actually, it's not totally finished. As I was sewing the bottom of the strap closed just before sewing the it onto the purse, my needle broke when I tried to force it over a hugely thick corner. Oops. And since Lucy had just woken from her nap and I wasn't sure where my needles or the mini-screw driver were, I just pinned it in with safety pins. **UPDATED: I'd vowed that this purse would NOT be like everything else I safety-pin "just for now" so after finishing Sophie's purse the next day, I changed the thread quick and sewed this up properly. Yay me for not leaving it "almost done" forever.**