Petal Pockets Purse for Mia

For our sweet friend Mia's 8th birthday, I sewed her a Petal Pockets Purse, which is one of the other patterns I won from Cozy Nest Design in the Sew Like My Mom giveaway.

I have to confess that I waited until the morning of the party to even start this, so I didn't have all of the exact materials on hand that the pattern specified.  As a result, I skipped a few steps, modified one step, and still came out with an awesome bag.

The directions are written so well that I was able to figure out which steps I could skip (like making zippered pockets out of the smaller petals on one side of the bag -- I just didn't have the right size and color of zippers on hand, and I figured Mia wouldn't know what she was missing).  I can't wait to try sewing another one of these so I can include the zippered pockets, bias tape stripe on the bottom panels, etc.

I love that the smaller petals are separate from the larger ones to form two very useful pockets!  I could totally imagine slipping a cell phone in one and my keys in another.  There aren't any interior pockets (probably because of the four exterior pockets!) but that would be super simple to add.

I am very proud that I was able to overcome a shortage of bias tape with an ingenious solution.  The interior and exterior are separately constructed and edged with bias tape, and then they are sewn together along the top with the straps stuck in between.  I didn't have enough of the right color of bias tape to edge the interior panels, so I stole a facing technique from garment sewing and used some leftover scraps from the lining to create facings to finish off the edges.  This only works in the case of the lining color matching the bias tape, though, but it resulted in far less bulk than the bias tape would have.  (The lining was supposed to be purple, but I ran out and used the brown instead.)