I had to chat about my patterns....

2 weeks ago I was talking to a friend of mine about blogging and I was talking to her about my patterns...and she told me that I really need to let my customers and students know about what I put into my patterns, so that they can create some pretty wonderful things.
I started designing handbags to make to sell for a couple of bucks.  Except my purses were selling for $250.-275.00.  And they better be good.  They better look good, and work good, plus take the normal beating that all we women inflict on our hand bags.  And it had to be all about the materials, and how I could coordinate them.  I also have a love of buttons...vintage or not.  And then there is that ribbon illness that I have to.  What could I do with all of this?  For gosh sake...I'll just throw a couple of purses together with all this darn material that I bought for who knows what.  Just had to have that fabric.   

This is what I start with a little hardware, some very cool coordinating fabrics from Alexander Henry, some lovely ostrich pleather...see all the makings for a bag that I will reveal very soon!!

So I have some lovely fabric, how am I going to make this handbag.  Well...I need to come up with reinforcements like muslin and Fast 2 Fuse, iron-on vinyl, and some special techniques to put it all together !   That is how I decided to put purses together!  And one year later I started that patterns.  I decided that I wanted to show other sewists to create great form and function.  

I could not put quilted handles on my bags, so one thing that I did do was to developed techniques for sewing on vinyl.  If I can sew on vinyl, then I can make straps that look like leather.  I can give the home sewer the ability to make their own designer bags!!  So after 3 years I have started to convince store owners that this vinyl thing is pretty cool, and it is green, and so much less expensive then leather!

And look at how awesome it looks here...can you believe that this is pleather/vinyl?  

I am planning to have extra tips for each pattern on how you can use it, or to update the current techniques on my website.  If anyone has any questions please feel free to email me...cheryl@paradisodesigns.com.  Check out my website for all of my patterns at paradisodesigns.com.

I have a tutorial on sewing pleather coming up!!

have a great rest of the week!!