Purse Palooza 2012 entry

Throughout June, Sara at Sew Sweetness put together and hosted Purse Palooza 2012, in which there were two purse pattern reviews each weekday and a giveaway every weekday during June. For my contest entry I wanted to create a purse that I could use for San Diego Comic-Con this year. This meant that the bag needed to be roomy enough to carry a bunch of stuff, be able to be worn crossbody, AND is striking in a sea of a million geeks. 

 My pick? Sara's red poppy bag! For reference, here is her version of the bag from the tutorial:

Since I wanted the purse to be striking, I chose a fabric that was quirky and "popped" when you looked at it. The poppy, made of 4 yards(originally 7 yards ungathered!) remained red.

 

I only made two changes to the bag:

 1. I increased the strap length by 5 inches so that it may be worn crossbody. Whenever I wear purses on my shoulder they always slip off my shoulder, and I needed to be able to wear this purse all day while on the go.

 2. Instead of blindstitching the interior to the exterior at the zipper, I chose to make the stitching a feature rather than a hidden stitch. This was mostly for convenience as I didn't want to manhandle the bag to sew completely around the 18" zipper. Plus, the more bling the merrier right?

I'm happy with how the purse turned out, and consider it a major accomplishment under my belt. I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I chose a purse that required 7 yards of fabric to gather! And, I had a bunch of trouble with the interfacing mainly due to my new-ness with using it. But after all of this I have a great new unique purse!