Thursday is Purse Day - Watermelon Purses

This week I made two watermelon purses, like I said I would on National Watermelon Day.  I hadn't make purses in awhile, and it was fun.

This purse is 7.5" wide and 4" tall (excluding the handle).  The fabric is batik and it sure looks watermelony to me.  The three squarish buttons along the bottom curve look exactly like the texture of watermelon.  It's a little hard to see here, but you can take my word for it.

 

This is the inside.  Another batik, that also looks watermelony to me.

The purse is made from three semi-circular sections, each one individually pieced and completely finished before joined to the others.  Both the front and back bottom pieces have batting inside them.  I sewed the buttons on before I hand stitched the front to the back.  The machine stitching you see is the top stitching I did after I turned the segment inside out.  It keeps the edges from rolling and it's how I closed the turn-it-inside-out opening.

The top piece (the front flap) has a lightweight interfacing instead of batting, so it can easily flop down.  It's machine stitched to the back.  If you look closely, you can see a red/black button at the top.  I sewed that on simultaneously with the outer button, to cover up the stitching. 

Somebody is getting fond of watermelon.

This is the back of the second watermelon purse, 3 1/2" square.  The center square is embroidered, with micro seed beads for the watermelon seeds.  I suppose I could have done French knots, but how often does one find a use for micro seed beads???  So I was glad to use them.

The beads in the four corners are left over from some other project, and they always reminded me of watermelon seeds.

This is the front.  The bright green outer border isn't part of the log cabin - it's the back of the purse's back.  After I did the embroidery and beading on the back, I hand stitched this bright green fabric over it to cover up all the mess. 

The log cabin block ends with the dark green and dark pink.  One doesn't want to stick their fingers into a purse and find a bunch of raw edges, so I faced it with the watermelon fabric to make it nice and neat.  I liked the idea of the front being smaller than the back, sort of like a pocket, plus it gives the illusion of another round of log cabin blocks.  I hand stitched the block around three edges, then sewed the little pig button so it peeks out in order to show where the purse top/opening is.

You see that watermelon button in the center?   That's what started everything.  I've had it for years and every time I saw it, I'd tell myself I was going to make a watermelon purse out of it someday.  I'm glad I finally did. 

 

 

Now we have a pig with a purse and a purse with a pig.