Machine Embroidered Purse

The video below shows a purse made by Chris at Needlepointers.com. The purse has eight machine embroidered panels that are joined together.

Using the Quilts Illustrated Mini Bow Tucks Pattern as a guide, the purse was assembled. A link to where to purchase this pattern is below.

The machine embroidered panels were made using a pattern by Sweet Pea Machine Embroidery Designs named "All Good Things Come In Fours". The design comes with two block patterns, one with the filled in flowers and the other a redwork version of the flowers.

The purse is a larger size than the original pattern because of the size of the machine embroidered blocks.

After embroidering the blocks and joining them together, extra fabric (about 3.5" wide) was added to the sides of each panel. If fabric was not added, then the blocks would have wrapped around the sides of the purse. This completed the front and back panels and gave the extra fabric needed for the sides.

The interior of the purse with the pockets also had to be resized to make it the same size as the front and back panels. Fabric was cut to the size of the outside panels. The inside pocket piece was also cut larger to fit the newly sized panel.

The pocket separator sizes were adjusted to match the new size also.

The pattern instructs to quilt the fabrics. Since the machine embroidery was on the front and back panels, we just used stitch in the ditch between the panels themselves. We chose not to quilt the inside of the purse but you could easily put some quilting on the inside.

The purse was assembled and finished as the pattern instructs. The one exception is where it instructs to make the boxed sides and cutting out of the square in the corners using the template. When you cut out the squares, the squares must be cut out using the width of the side panel which was added. So, measure your finished side width and you cut your square to HALF that size. The original pattern had a template that was 2.5" square but since I added 3.5" side panels I cut mine to 3" since after sewing the panels together I ended up with 6" on the sides.

The ties, handles and button loop were all created using the pattern instructions.

We love how our version of this Mini Bow Tucks purse turned out and like the larger size.

Some other bag sewing and machine embroidery projects are:

• Sallie Tomato Ginger Crossbody Bag - This is a crossbody bag featuring cork fabric.
• Melford Messenger Bag - This is a sewn bag also featuring cork.
• Dog Walking Crossbody Bag - This is a in the hoop machine embroidered bag perfect for taking on dog walks.
• How does your Garden Grow Bag - This is a wonderful machine embroidered tote bag.

You may be interested in these machine embroidery projects:

• How to make Free Standing Lace Earrings
• DIY Crossbody Bag