Hell Bent For Pleather : Part Two

I am a lover of research. Anything new that I hear about, I instantly dive into. My husband is constantly telling me to get off my phone when we're watching TV, but I'm not doing the social media thing. Well, I am a little. But nine times out of ten, I am looking up something or someone that interested me. That being said, I had to do a ton of research before I even cut the pleather for my handbag. It was so rare to come upon any material like this from our local thrift store, so I wanted to make sure I knew everything I could before cutting. Especially since pleather shows every little mark.

After extensive research, I have come to this conclusion: pleather is kind of awesome!

This handbag pattern consists of just 4 pieces, but I only used 3 of them because I had a set of brown straps that I got for $1 at our amazing thrift store. The pieces for the bag are the front/back piece, the lower band and the base cover. After looking at the instructions, I knew that the base cover did not need to be in the pleather material because it just sits inside the purse. I also saw that the handles I had bought would not quite work as a pair, so I decided to just use one handle and save one for another bag. I also ditched the lower band altogether and did not cover the base. I did use the base cover piece to cut out a piece of cardboard to go inside the bag, but it remains uncovered.

The purse itself was a breeze to sew; I was just worried about making sure the stitches were in the right place because I didn't want weird holes if I had to rip some stitches out. Attaching the handles was a bit of a difficulty because I wanted to line the bag, so I had to attach them first and then hand sew the lining to the top. The husband had a good idea for attaching them, but it was too late. I'll try his idea on my next purse, because this was so fun to sew!!



I made some random pockets inside and attached some metal feet! Faaaancy.


I wanted something kind of different, so I used some random chain I had found in an estate sale/vintage find/I don't really remember where it came from. I also had some jewelry making supplies, so I took some chain and some key and lock charms and put them on there, too. For the zipper pull, I wanted some fringe, so I made some!


Its kind of hard to see the fringe because its the same color as the bag. haha.

Since I got a handbag frame thingy for a quarter (thank you, thrift store), I am thinking of making a smaller clutch with fringe all over it, kind of like this:



In conclusion, Simplicity 4729 was super easy to make and I will definitely make another!