The Off-Kilter Quilter: Quick change purse

I am a huge fan of hidden seams, and I try to complete all my projects so that my raw edges don't show. With that in mind, I made up a fully lined change purse with all hidden seams. You can make it whatever size you want, but I'll give you the measurements for the one I made.

You'll need:

**two complimentary fabrics--one is your liner and one is your outer fabric
**batting
**snaps--I use magnetic
**thread, sewing machine, rotary cutter...the basics :)

Spray your fabric with heavy starch, sizing, whatever you want to use, and iron it smooth. The starch will be important in just a minute! Cut your outer fabric to a 11"x6" rectangle. Cut your liner fabric to 9"x4 7/8" (5 inches minus 1/8th of an inch). Cut your batting to 10"x4 7/8". Make yourself a quilt sandwich like this:

Outer fabric face UP + liner fabric face DOWN + batting, all lined up to your left bottom corner. Sew that long-side seam:

Now go to your ironing board and spread your sandwich out so that your outer fabric and inner fabrics are face up and your batting is underneath the liner fabric. Iron a sharp crease between your outer and liner fabrics:

This is where you want to put on your snaps, if you don't want the backs of them to show. You'll notice that your liner fabric is "short". You want your snaps to go onto your outer fabric, so that the actual "snap" part is on the right side of the fabric. Put one snap 3" in and 3/4" down from the longer end (the end that is longer than the liner). Put the other half of the snap 3" in and 1" up from the end that lines up with the liner fabric. Now, follow me here: fold the outer fabric back over so that the long raw edge of the outer fabric lines up with the long raw edge of the inner fabric. Sew that long seam:

Now, you should end up with batting and the wrong side of your outer fabric on the outside, and the outer fabric SHOULD NOT lay smooth and flat. This is intentional. Trust me! :) Go back to your ironing board. Remember how I had you iron a hard crease earlier? Lay your sandwich down so that your hard crease is face up (batting down to the ironing board) and AWAY from you. Very gently lay your fingertips on the "extra" bunchy fabric. The starch you sprayed on your fabric earlier will make it easy for you to get a finger-crease here. Finger-press the fabric to the edge so that you get a zig-zag effect:

Then use your iron for a hard crease. That's one side. Flip the sandwich around so that your newly pressed zigzag edge is close to you and hold that crease with one hand. Use your other hand and finger-crease the other edge. Use your iron to hard-crease. If you look at the short edge of your project, you should see nothing wider than the batting, and the fabric zigzagged as above on both sides.

Back to your sewing machine! Holding those zigzags, sew that short seam.

Now turn it all inside out! You should end up with a 1/4" border along the long edges of your liner fabric, and--this is why you did it this way--no bulky folded batting at the edge. You're gonna care about that in a second! :)

At this point I like to just run my iron over it to give it a bit of an edge, so things just lay nicely. Fold the remaining raw edge--at the "top" of the "long end"--1/4" and sew 1/4" seam all the way around the entire piece. Trust me, it lays much nicer this way. Be careful of your needles and your snaps! A 1/4" foot will walk over the edge of a snap--it can handle the rise--but you can't hit it fast and you've gotta make sure it will still feed. Take it slow.

Now is the fun part! Switch feet to a free-motion foot and quilt to your heart's content. :) I do a random stippling in a thread in one of the colors in the fabric, but you could just as easily use blending thread, invisible thread, or high-contrast thread. It's up to you!

Once it's all quilted--be sure to get around the snaps, too, to give them some stability--fold your flap. Now, remember where your liner fabric was "short"?

You'll discover that your project "wants" to fold right there, so fold it over and sew three edges: one short side, the long fold that is about 1/2" away from your snap, and the other short edge:

Now, here's where the flap actually stays down: close your piece (make sure your snaps meet, too--BEFORE you sew down the final seams is a good time to do this!). Find the crease where the top flap folds down, and sew that crease down:

Make it as tiny or as large as you want, so that your snaps line up. Once that crease is sewn down, open it back up. Change to an all-purpose foot. I have a machine that does fancy stitches, so I just chose one and sewed the "pouch" sides closed: