Into the Mail

I mentioned a while ago that I had worked with some purple leather for a Bag Ladies Swap challenge. As it has now been received by Nicola in Ireland I can now show you how it turned out:

(didn't know leather was so shiny until I took this picture!)

The exterior is purple leather, the applique is red suede. Can you see that I used both sides of the red, one is smooth and the other is fuzzy? The handle has the red suede on the interior of the strap. The interior is some dupioni silk with, of course, some lavender buds between the leather and the silk. I did not use any interfacing for stiffness because I think the leather is sturdy enough on its own. For the closure I used two little rare earth magnets sewn into two little pouches at the top of the bag. I did this because, I must confess, that with the lack of interfacing, a standard magnetic snap just would not work so I took the easy way out. This is the Grace handbag from the Making Vintage Handbags book I have used before. I understand that Nicola will be field testing this bag this week so I hope she will report back on how it stood up to her use.

For September it appears the challenge may be a man's bag...Yikes!