Recycled Sweater Bag

I found a great site, sew4home.com, with great sewing tutorials. They had a diaper bag tutorial that I wanted to try for the first time. I've never made a bag or a purse before - but this was so easy! I took an old extra large beaded and embroidered sweater that I was going to throw away, and cut it up to make this bag. I used every bit of that sweater for this bag. The lining material was also left over from another project, so I only had to buy the interfacing.

At times with all the layers of interfacing, thick sweater, lining, pockets ... my presserfoot was all the way to the top! Thank goodness for my old extra heavy duty Janome machine. If you use regular cloth it shouldn't be so bad. You cant really see the beads on these pictures, but the cloth had white seed pearl type beads scattered over it. Definitely made sewing interesting!

The inside has 6 pockets all around the edges. I love this arrangement. I think it will make things more organized and easier to find than several big horizontal pockets would.

I will probably use this as a craft organizer.

I was so thrilled with my first attempt at a bag, that I decided to make a smaller purse using the same basic pattern, just cut smaller, and tutorial from sew4home. I paid 7$ for some quilted black fabric for the outside, and a really cute chocolate brown print for the inside and pockets, from the clearance isle at Walmart. I used left over interfacing from the first project. I made the handle a little shorter and without the tied bow.

I love this purse! Everything stays put in its own pocket. I love the soft squishyness of the purse - just tuck the whole thing up under your arm or wear the strap. One thing I changed from the directions is I did not use elastic in the pockets (didn't have any.) I decided I didn't like it without elastic so I used an embroidery needle and inserted elastic thread into the empty casings of the pockets. It worked just fine, so my pockets are not floppy like you see in the photo. If I made it again I would definitely use the 1/4 inch elastic called for in the directions. Also, all of the pockets are the pouch kind, none of them are flat.

Go here for the tutorial.