'Phoebe' Handbags

Once again this christmas I have tried to make more presents than we have had to go out and buy. I prefer to give people something handmade as it just makes it a little more special and personal to that person.

Seeing as I seem to have become good friends with my sewing machine this year I decided to venture into making the women in the family handbags for christmas. My mum knew I was going to be making handbags so she had the luxury of picking the fabric she wanted at a craft show...but she didn't know what design of bag she would be getting as I hadn't even decided when she chose her fabric.

In the end I decided to use Rebeka's design for the Phoebe Bag from her blog ArtsyCraftyBabe.

Here's the finished 3 handbags to be given as presents.

For my boyfriend's Stepmum I chose a dark blue floral print, a little like a Cath Kidston print

For his Mum I chose a pale yellow floral print, once again very similar to a Cath Kidston style of fabric...after all who doesn't like a CK print?

After much deliberation and changing her mind from dotty to hearts to butterflies and back round again, mum finally settled on this butterfly print fabric. The only thing any of the fabrics she chose had in common was that they were all purple as she has a bit of a thing for purple still.

As a reward for making everybody else's bags I decided to make myself one with a white and blue floral print fabric. by the time I got round to making my bag I totally had the knack of it and mine only took an hour and half from cutting all the fabric to putting in the last stitches, very impressed!

Each of the bags has a simple plain ivory cotton lining and a large pocket made using the outer fabric, as shown in the photo below. I also stitched in one of my handmade labels as well so everybody knows I made the bags instead of having bought them somewhere. The bags are held shut by a magnetic clasp on the flap that comes over the opening of the bag.

Here's hoping they all liked their handbags and they get some good use out of them. I have masses of each fabric left so there may be some matching items made for future presents too!

I really recommend this handbag design to anyone who wants to start making their own bags, the pdf pattern is great and so are the instructions. A little googling on how to do the darts for the first bag and I was well and truly on my way getting them whipped up in a flash.