Sunday, August 23, 2009

Zipper on small purse

Sherry had asked  -- how did I add that extra outer zipper?

My purse consists of 3 sections –-
1) The Front, which continues up and over the top to the back for an inch.  I created it that way so that I could take advantage of an uninterrupted design area for the front.
2) A 1-1/2” section between the upper and lower zippers.
3) A section which is below the lower zipper.

The section below the lower zipper (lined) is sewn to the bottom half of the lower zipper and it becomes the frontside of the outside pocket.

The backside (inside) of the lower zippered pocket is a piece of the lining which is sewn to the top half of the lower zipper.

The lining of the purse consists of 2 sections --
1) Back lining sewn to bottom half of top zipper (which also covers up the area of the lower zipper).
2) Front lining sewn to top half of top zipper.

After sections and lining of purse are sewn together and while it is still flat, the purse template is laid on top and cut around (See previous blog entry).  After purse is cut out, I then stitch around the purse’s lower pocket at sides and bottom (defining pocket) to give the pocket sides and a bottom.  If you don’t stitch around, defining the sides and bottom, stuff in pocket would move to parts of purse you don’t want stuff to move to.

When you look inside the finished purse, you do not see any sign of the lower zipper.

Hope this helps you Sherry (and others) to figure out how to make that lower zippered pocket.  I think I initially figured out how to do it by looking at something that had that kind of construction.  You can learn a lot about the construction of an item by looking inside or turning it wrong side out. 

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks so much, Pat! Now I can make myself a cute little bag, complete with exterior zip. Yay!

Sunnie said...

I like to turn things inside out, too.