Placemat Purses

Placemat purses are a quick, easy way to add a cute bit of punch to your wardrobe. Placemats come in a million colors and patterns, are already lined, and are generally pretty sturdy. One placemat folded in half makes a purse with room for my planner, two diapers, and travel box of baby wipes. Two placemats sewn together makes a substantial sized bag that can hold a lot more.

*Terms that may be unfamiliar will be starred and explained at the end of the lesson. If you understand them, ignore the star.

For this purse you'll need:
-1 placemat
-thread in a color to match
-grosgrain ribbon for handles and tie (which is optional)




-First, fold the placemat, wrong sides* together, like a book. Butt the two side edges together, and get that seam directly under the center of your sewing machine foot. Put the top edge just a bit behind your presser foot.











-Backstitch* up to the top edge of the purse side seam, then reverse directions and sew all the way down the seam, keeping the edge butted together. One swing of the zigzag will catch one side of the seam, the other swing, the other edge. When you get toward the bottom corner, you're going to have to turn the purse inside out around the presser foot, and sorta bunch it up to sew as far as you can. When you've gotten as far as the foot will go, backstitch.



-Do the same on the other side. What you'll end up with is a flat pocket that looks like this-->





-Now, turn the whole thing inside out. (I find my knee helps to push the inside out.) Flatten the bottom corner with your seam running up the middle. Make sure it's running exactly up the middle by checking that the top edge of the seam points to the other side seam. (This'll make sense if you lay it out and do it.)

-Measure up from the point 2", making sure the seam is perpendicular to the ruler. Either put a pin at either edge where the ruler touches the corner, or draw a pencil line right on the fabric along the top of the ruler.





-Take it to the sewing machine, and sew across that pencil line, or, if you used pins, from pin to pin. Repeat the whole process on the other side. Turn it right side out and you'll end up with this-->





Now you just have to put handles on.

-Flatten the top edge, measure in toward the center 3", and place a pin. Do this on both sides, right and left, front and back, so you have four pins.



-To determine how long you want the handles, drape your ribbon over your shoulder and think about how low you want your purse to hang. Cut two ribbons at that length, plus just a bit for turning under to attach them.

-Turn one end under 1/2" or so, and place it inside the top edge of the purse under the pin you put there earlier. Angle the ribbon slightly toward the center of the purse. Pin the ribbon in place.



-Sew two lines from the outside of the purse, down through the handle edge. Backstitch at both ends of each line. If there's already stitching at the edge of the placemat, you can sew on top of that and your stitches will be less obvious. This placemat didn't have stitching close to the edge, so if I weren't doing this to show, I would probably have used blue thread.

Doing this four times will give you attached handles.





Here's what that'll look like from inside.



And there you are. A finished purse. Now, some notes:

-if you want a tie in the middle, measure to the center of the purse sides and sew on more ribbon just like you did the handles.
-if you don't want the big zigzag line down the outside of your purse, you can turn the purse right sides together in the first step, sew a regular seam, and proceed from there. The seam will add a little bulk, you'll have to be careful going across it when you box the bottom corners, but it does make a less casual looking purse.
-If you'd like to make a two-placemat purse, the only difference will be that you'll have to make a bottom seam as well.
-Use whatever you like for handles. There are wooden and plastic purse handles for sale in craft stores, or you could sew a tube of fabric, turn it right side out, and use that. Same goes for the closure. Use whatever you want.

*wrong side-the inside, the side of the fabric you usually won't see in the finished product
*backstitch (aka backtack)-sew backward to secure the beginning and end of a seam. Your machine has a button, lever, something, to let you backstitch.

Little Sewing Lessons

Because so many of you have expressed an interest in learning to sew, I thought I’d make a series of little lessons to help. I’ll try to make these as simple and explanatory as possible. When you have questions, post comments and I’ll reply so that everybody else in our “class” can learn, too. It’d be best if you each did each of the projects, so that you can understand the concepts, but if you skip one (or more) you’re certainly not kicked out or left behind. And if you make one of our projects, please send pictures and I’ll post them.

Here’s what I’m going to assume:

-You have a sewing machine

-You know, basically, how to use the sewing machine. (i.e. thread it, change the needle, etc)

-You know nothing else about sewing. (I realize some of you know some, but let’s assume nobody knows nothin’.)

So, if you are an experienced sewer, and you happen upon this blog, move on, cause we’re going to take this really slow. I’ll explain everything as we go along, but if I’ve explained something in a previous project, I’ll assume you’ve learned it and we’ll go on to learning other stuff.

Okay! Enough! Let’s get busy.