Bear Thimble Purse

Those of you who look at my Pinterest board 'Inspiration' will know that I have been inspired by patterns for thimble purses and the purses pictured on Yumikuhiguchi's blog. 

I decided to have a go at making an embroidered purse myself using a metal purse frame. When I'm using my cross stitching in a different way I'm always worried about getting it wrong and not being able to salvage my cross stitching. I looked at various purse making tutorials on line. The scariest thing was not having a pattern to match my frame. Unless you buy a kit you have to make it up as you go along and I've never used a metal purse frame before. I probably should have used fabric first and then my embroidery, but I didn't!

It took me a while to decide whether to use a frame in which you glue your work or a frame to which you stitch your work. In the end I decided to use a 'glue in' frame because I liked the invisible join of fabric and metal.

I bought two new gold coloured 6.5cm purse frames in an ebay auction for less than £2! I already had my favourite UHU fabric glue in my sewing tools. The rest was trial and error and guess work!

I embroidered the front of the purse with a small bear, snow and two different types of tree from LHN 'Bear Tree Forest'. 

For the back I chose part of an LHN design called 'Woodland Sampler.' It fits well with my Trees and Cardinal set and the Bears as it features a fir tree branch a Cardinal, Squirrel and Rabbit with snowflakes.

I 'squared off' the corners and lined the inside with the same sage green linen that I've used before. I added a handmade label as a finishing touch. 

This is a first for me! I've learnt a lot and there are a few things that I would do differently but overall, I am very pleased with the result. It can comfortably fit my thimble, my gold stork scissors, my beeswax, Needle Case, Handmade Needle Threader and Magnetic Needle Rests.