Pleated Beauty Handbag

Here’s the Pleated Beauty Handbag I made following the instructions in Amy Karol’s Bend the Rules Sewing. The fabric is a home décor weight that I bought a couple of remnant pieces of from fabricguru.com last year for a home dec project (will take pics and blog that someday, but not today).

Here's the other side, which I like even better.


The contrast pleats are a rayon imitation linen. Not my fave fabric but the color and slightly nubby, slightly loose weave are a good match.


I’ve already made kitchen chair cushions covers from these fabric leftovers (aren’t they cute!), and still have more left. I'm so tempted to make something to wear from this fabric, but am concerned I will look like a couch. Middle-aged spread is depressing enough without wearing upholstery. Might do it anyway... if a decade ever comes that I pull ahead of the UFOs.


Lined with a burnt-orange quilting calico.

I’m not totally thrilled with this. Left out the “semi-rigid insert” for the bottom when I realized it’s not designed to go all the way across. Sorry Amy K., but that just doesn’t look right to me (and now I know what looked a little off to me in the photos of this bag in her book). And (like the “charming” handbag that doesn’t charm me quite as much as I hoped it would), this could benefit from some kind of a closure, or a zippered inner pocket.

No matter, it’s not for me anyway: gift for my sister (other sister, not the one who’s getting the Charming Handbag; they’re both coming to visit in a couple of weeks, and I felt inspired to make something for them).

I think my main issue with this bag is the proportions: it looks too wide to me. But I do really like the contrast pleats. That feature looks great in every version I’ve seen of this bag (there are tons on Flickr). I might try this again and play around with proportions. Or make a solid box bottom, so pleats are on the sides only.

In the meantime, I’ve got a rush-to-finish novel in the works, houseguests coming in two weeks (which is generating a couple of other projects), some dress project challenges to work out, plus all the regular stuff I should be doing every day. More handbags will have to wait.