Summer Purse

I was sooooo proud when I finished this purse, and now I am soooooo sad that it didn't hold up.  I got it in my head to make a "perfect purse" for me.  I wanted it to be cross-body and pretty small, but big enough to hold all my necessities.  I wanted to to be colorful but to go with everything, of course.  I wanted professional-looking leather elements and metal hardware.  

I was able to achieve all of these goals, and I used this bag with delight for about a month... and then the problems with a bag made from cute quilting cotton became evident - it was getting dirty and it became so totally floppy as the interfacing got broken-in that I wasn't happy with the way it looked anymore.  I am really happy with how the leather bits turned out, though.  I love the contrasting colors.

I started out with a pattern from the book Zaka Style, but I significantly changed the proportions and pockets.

The only sewing challenges I had was getting that orange pocket to stay straight without being able to pin or even binder-clip it in place since it wasn't on the edge, and the long leather strip just above the orange pocket.  That strip was one of the last things I did, though, and I think I was just getting tired and losing my patience to go slowly.

I was so pleased with my little cell phone pocket on the back with the magnetic snap.

The straps even turned out pretty well.

I really enjoyed picking my fabrics, and not a lot was needed, so it wasn't very expensive to make.  I also had the scraps of leather on hand as well as most of the hardware.

See?  It perfectly held everything I like to lug around.  It is the floppiness that drove me nuts after a while, though.  More interfacing would definitely help, but the issue of it just getting dirty isn't so easy to solve.  Oh well.  I enjoyed it for a while, and then I went out and bought myself a nice little blue cross-body bag that I've been carrying since.