Laced Faux Leather Purse

Yay! Silhouette Faux Leather Paper is here, and I'm shorting out with ideas to try - but I'll start small with these laced purses. Each purse measures about 7.5 x 10cm (3 x 4in) closed. 

About the Silhouette Faux Leather Paper: it cuts like a dream on a Silhouette machine (set the blade to notch 5 or 6). Cut out the pattern pieces, soak them in water, scrunch up, then smooth out - magic! - the appearance of leather grain. When dry, make up the project.

My purses are prettified versions of the sort of laced leatherwork projects you may have done in Brownies or summer camp. 

Here's the pattern template:
LacedPurse.pdf 
LacedPurse.studio3 
LacedPurse.svg 

Laced Faux Leather Purse

You will need:
Silhouette Faux Leather in Natural and White 
1.5m (1-3/4yd) of 3mm-wide (1/8in) satin double-faced ribbon 
A tapestry needle

1 Cut out the purse pieces on your Silhouette machine. Cut the purse flap backing in a contrast colour. (If making the hand-cut .pdf version, punch the holes out with a 1/8in circle hand punch - labour intensive - consider going digital!) Make sure all the lacing holes are clear - you may need to poke a few stragglers with a tapestry needle. 

2 Cut two 20cm(8in) lengths from the ribbon. Knot the end. Thread one length through the hole in the purse front piece and the other length through the centre hole on purse body top (below the flower cut-out). Knots to the inside! Knot the ribbon pieces close to the ends.

3 Lay the purse front over the lower portion of the purse body with holes aligned. Thread the tapestry needle with the remaining piece of ribbon. Start lacing at the top hole on one side of the purse front piece.
Sew through the hole twice to secure the ribbon. (The ribbon tail goes inside, of course.) Work oversewing (overhand stitch) around the purse. Make sure that the ribbon does not twist as you sew. When you reach the opposite side of the purse front, stitch through twice to reinforce it, then continue on another stitch.

4 Now lay the contrast lining on the underside of the purse top flap with holes aligned. No need to secure the lining piece - just continue lacing through both layers. Continue lacing to the beginning hole. Secure the ribbon and pass it through a few loops (underneath) to secure it. Trim off the ribbon end. You're done!

More about the Silhouette Faux Leather paper: it comes in three colours - Natural, White, and Black. Each roll measures 30 x 149cm (12in x 59inches - one inch shy of 5 feet!) - so plenty there. 

The attraction of Faux Leather paper, apart from the classy grainy appearance, of course, is that it doesn't fray and is ideal for making flexible projects featuring paper manipulation. "Fabric without the fuss" - the designer's holy grail. So I'm looking forward to lots of fun and challenging experimentation and quality paper play!