My 13-year-old daughter is huge into owls right now, so I thought I would make her an owl purse for Christmas. Ssshhh!
Being the thrifty-green sort, I found a wool tweed suit jacket that had seen better days. The moth holes on the collar and ripped up lining made it undesireable... not to mention the ginormous elbow patches and the leather braid buttons.
So... old wool jacket, wool scraps, thread, and dye on hand, and those nifty leather buttons from the coat - all I needed was some lining fabric. (I had a coupon for Joann Fabrics!) A few hours of cutting, embroidering, appliqueing, and sewing later...
Ugly, worn coat - wash and dry!
Start cutting!
And embroidering and appliqueing...
(I dyed the beak and the yellow part of the eyes to match the colors in the lining fabric, and dyed the stomach to coordinate with the tweed.)
Waste not, want not! Those 70s buttons are perfect!
Sew it all together and stitch in the lining. Add a nice long strap, and you're done!
ETA:
To anyone who plans on making one:
I used a really stiff fusible interfacing on the tweed, to keep it structured. I cut a strip of fabric about 4 inches wide for the side/bottom piece and fused the interfacing to it. Then I ran a line of stitches down each side where my seam would be, and 'preclipped' the strip. This made it so easy to stitch it along the curve of the owl body pieces.
When you do the lining, Leave the bag right side out, with the lining inside out. Place the bag inside the lining. And when you stitch the two pieces together, leave a good 4-5 inch space for turning, and make sure you have lock-stitched each end of your seam well. And don't forget to clip the curves. Otherwise... turning it will be a nightmare!
If you can think of a better way to line it, please share. =)
