Purse Caddy, etc.

 I did a demo on a easy to make purse caddy at my little quilt guild earlier this month.  I totally forgot to post it here, despite saying that I would.  Oh well, better late than never.

I was shown a cute little purse caddy when I was at the Missouri TOGA back in June.  I was given one so that I could present the idea to my little quilt guild.  

The purse caddy came with a little sheet that included the website where she got the idea, and what the purse caddy could be used for.

note that came with the purse caddy

purse caddy I was given

purse caddy opened up

I decided to make some of these, and also make kits for all the ladies in the guild.  The lady I got my purse caddy from said that she used pot holders from the dollar store.  I went to the dollar store and bought a stack of pot holders.  The pot holders need to have the hanging loop in the center of one side, not off a corner, since the loop holds the button to close the purse caddy.

Just to let you know, I didn't check out the website Find It Make It Love It until I'd already made my samples for the demo.  It turns out that the website uses rectangular pot holders to make their purse caddys.  I used square pot holders to make mine.  I'll point out the differences between their purse caddy and mine as I go along.

Finding pot holders was easy.  Finding snack bags wasn't so easy.  I found lots of the new style that are square, but couldn't find any in the rectangle size needed for this project.  I finally found a jumbo box that had the large green ends.  Oh well, they worked, especially since I needed enough snack bags to put 6 in each kit I made (about 22 kits), plus snack bags to make my samples.  

I layered my snack bags on the pot holders, and held them in place with clover clips.  I marked a line down the center, using a chalk marker, so that the chalk line would disappear as I stitched.

ready to stitch

To make it easier to sew over all the plastic, I used a roller foot for my sewing machine.  You can also just cover the bottom of your sewing foot with blue tape to make it slide easier.  I did that for one of my samples, just to make sure it worked well, too.

roller foot and blue tape

Of course, these were all stitched on a vintage hand crank sewing machine.

1927 Singer 15 hand crank

I stitched 1/4" down either side of the line that I marked.  Here is the stitching line from the back (easier to see), and from the snack bag side.  With the square pot holders, your snack bags will overlap more than her snack bags do with a rectangle pot holder.  

stitching line from the back

from the snack bag side

Here are the first samples that I made.

4 finished samples

While shopping at Walmart, I found these cool, reusable snack bags by the kitchen utensils.  I figured I could make a purse caddy with them. The set I got at Walmart had 8 bags for $4.97.

set of 8 for less than the cost online

These bags are larger than the standard snack bag size, so I had to improvise.  I pulled out some pre-quilted fabric that I had, and made pot holders to fit these bags (9.5" square with rounded corners).  I even had some packaged binding laying around in matching colors.  I only used 4 bags for each purse caddy, so a package makes 2 purse caddys. 

2 larger finished purse caddys

inside of one purse caddy

One lady at my guild meeting loved these so much that she went out and bought all the reusable snack bags at several of the local Walmarts.  She is going to make them for several relatives that fly often, so that they can use them when they travel.  I plan on using some of mine to hold my scissors, threads, etc. for embroidery.

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Update on the bleeding red backing fabric for my Family Reunion quilts. I tried a method that someone else recommended.  I soaked the fabrics in hot water with Dawn for 12 hours (several different times), but, this fabric still bleeds.  After washing the backing fabrics 20 times (including soaking), I gave up and bought new backing fabrics (light tan, and no bleeds).  Does anyone want 2 large backing fabrics that might turn your project pink?  Free to a good home.

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Update on weight loss:

I've now lost 56 pounds in 7 months!  Woohoo!  I still have a ways to go.  Now I need to see if I have more, smaller pants in the basement that fit.  Mine are falling off.