BTW finding on-line information for Pellon sewing products is difficult. When I was working on the previous post I wanted to put in a link to the product page for the interfacing that I was talking about. Clarity and all that…

Not so easy it turns out.

www.pellon.com is the home page of Finnish company that produces farming equipment. (Well worth a couple of minutes rummaging through the piggery equipment…)

www.pellonideas.com is the badly organized, un-proof-read, consumer products site. A bit of shovelware, some press releases, and a handful of craft projects. When I entered Peltex in the search box it came back empty, and the menus… The Information Architect is crying…

www.shoppellon.com aka Products A La Carte actually has product information and will sell you Pellon products. But bloody hell — it doesn’t even show up on the first page of Google results for “Pellon Interfacing.”

My first experiment in building a structured purse.

I used the Dorothy/Evelyn pattern from Emma Brennan’s Making Vintage Bags. Charming bags and good instructions — a lovely book.

The pink boucle fabric jumped off the shelf at me in JoAnn’s one afternoon. It seemed like something that should be made into a Chanel jacket but I can’t wear that much pink and I have no occasion to wear a “suit” so…

pink boucle purse

I already had the lining, and the button was in the miscellaneous box. I had though I wanted a pink velvet bow — there’s one in the book — but finding pink short pile velvet turned out to be a fool’s errand. So the aqua button stepped in. I think it works well.

lining and magnetic snap

The experimental part was the interfacing. I wanted structure so I used a heavy craft weight interfacing Pellon — Peltex 70. Imaging something that is almost like packing felt — and really stiff. It’s easy enough to work with, and gives a nice plump feeling to the purse and keeps the body from collapsing but… it’s wonky. I couldn’t figure out just how or why but the result was not pleasing.

buckling on the top edge

Leave it to the DH to make sense of my intuitions. The problem is similar to “oil-canning” in sheet metal. Sort of… (You can find the wierdest stuff on the internet!)

In this case the problem is that the Pelmet does not roll gracefully, it buckles instead, giving the wonky top edge that I didn’t like.

After messing about with a piece of leftover Pelmet I’ve concluded that there is no way to make it roll smoothly over a radius as small as the top edge of a clutch. I can see where I would want to use Pelmet for something like a bucket tote, or the sides of a bolster clutch but it isn’t the right material for this project.

Ho hum, on to the next one…

Everybody is doing it. Even here in the “bubble.” Using those ugly green reusable grocery bags.

Heartwarming eco-points 8. Style points 0.

I won’t even mention what they chose to fill it with for this image. Yuck!

I made this one yesterday.

Heartwarming eco-points 8. Style points 6. Maybe.

It’s still better than some vaguely polyester green thing with a grocery store logo on it.

I made it using the Charlie Bag pattern from BurdasSyle. At BurdaStyle you can also find several how-tos about making this bag using a serger, making the lined version (2 ways), and a gallery of bags made by burdastyle fans. (There are a couple of stunners — like this one.

This is the first thing I’ve made from a BurdaStyle pattern. It was an interesting but ultimately simple process. I’ll write more about burdastyle and their “print at home” patterns soon. Right now the sun is out and it’s Friday afternoon and I have a date with a sports car of my acquaintance…