Sewing Project

For a while now I've been working on making a buttoned down blouse. All it needs is the buttons but I've never done buttons so I keep putting it off.

Anyway, my niece, Karlie has a birthday coming up on Saturday and I happened to come across something she'd love on Etsy. So I thought to myself, I can totally make that so I did.

Here is the original:

I already have a ton of fabric just waiting for a project. I wanted to make the dog out of leather but I didn't have the right color leather in my collection so I went to Joann's and bought $3.40 worth of vinyl. The dog is so small, I could probably make 20 dogs with the amount of vinyl I bought even though I bought the minimun they would cut at Joann's.

I wanted to change the bag a bit to be a bit more like a wallet type bag that I already have. It's big enough for money and cards and maybe some lipstick and your phone. I used it all of the time, plus it's more simple than the tote style the Etsy person used.

Here are all the cut pieces (not shown is the felt I used to give the bag a little bit of structure.):

The sewing part took no time at all. In total, the entire project with pattern making, cutting and sewing took me about 3-4 hours which I spread out over a few days.

Here is the finished product:

I realized I made a few mistakes. I figured out how I can sew the zipper in without seeing a seam but that was after I had sewn the whole bag. I also realized that I should have put the sewn side of the strap facing down so you don't see the open end facing up. I also think I'm going to draw in little white dots in the whites of the dog's eyes so he doesn't look quite as evil. The next one will be better. Those are just minor aesthetic things that I can prefect on another project. I think I'm going to try to make different animals next.