MIL Purse

My MIL's birthday is on Saturday and months ago she asked me to make her a new purse. She wouldn't tell me any colors other than peach/blue spring colors. I really wanted to use the new Object of My Desire charm pack and coordinates we got in, so I picked one up and a yard of each of two coordinates. I figured if nothing else, I'd make a tablerunner out of the left overs.
The last purse I made her was the Towne Purse from Lazy Girl Designs. We both love the size, but I hated how the zipper went in and didn't like the pocket on the front. I love the Miranda and the Mini Miranda, but both are too big for her and she wanted a zipper. I looked through all my other books, patterns, and couldn't come up with one I really thought was perfect, so this is a conglamorative effort of patterns and my own playing. It's not done, but I thought you'd like a sneak peek.
I used 16 charms, cut in half, with a couple cut in quarters and offset them like I did in the Mom and Me bag a while back. I sewed each row, then used fusible fleece and pressed the first down, added the second and did quilt as you go for both sides. I cut them down to 11x15, the size of the town purse. I added 5 1/2" pockets on the front and back, leftovers from the piece of lining I cut. Those will be for keys and cell phone.


Then I made pockets similar to the Miranda bags and added those to the lining. I sewed the zipper in between the lining and outer edge. I do have extra lining to cut off after I figure out how it will all come together. I'm next going to figure out how to cut out squares on the top to square it off as I did on the bottom, then I'll sew it all together like the Miranda. I was too tired and didn't want to mess it up last night. Then I'll add handles from the same fabric as the pockets below. In a few days I should have a picture of the finished purse.