Things Are Going From Bag To Purse

Things have been somewhat busy of late, hence radio silence for a little while, but it's Sunday morning, I'm in my dressing gown with a nice cup of Lapsang Souchong and I think I have a bit of time to catch up with y'all!

Purses.  The sharp of eye will notice that they've been cropping up of late on Shark Alley.

The reason behind this is that in August I started working part-time at U-Handbag, an online boutique which sells gorgeous purse frames, bag handles and all sorts of other lovely things designed for you to make your own fabulous arm candy.

You should definitely pop along and check out their friendly and accessible website - there are lots of free patterns and tutorials to get you started if you fancy having a go yourself!  Click here.

Their HQ is a mere 10 minutes walk from where I live and head honcho Lisa Lam and office manager Mary Pryce are lovely ladies to work with. There is plenty of tea, biscuits and cake flying round, lots of laughter and Lisa's super-cute six-month old daughter Mabel in the mix as well!  All in all, a great job to have and I feel so lucky to have got it.

From left to right: your correspondent, Lisa, Mary and Lauren

Inspired by all these lovely accessories and being a gal who loves a bit of a crafty challenge, I set about seeing if I could make my own purses, massively inspired by the amazing Lauren Staley (who I was employed to replace, but quite probably never can).  After a couple of trial runs, I finally got to grips with interfacing, seam allowances, stinky fabric glue and my Mum's wonderful vintage Singer sewing machine from the 1960s to create little coin purses featuring a fox and Scampi Moo the otter.  I'm loving using interior fabrics sourced from my own fabric stash and lucky off-cut finds, so each purse is one of a kind.

It has opened up a whole exciting world of crafting and I feel quite sure that every lady I know will be receiving bags and purses as gifts for a while!  Here's one I made up as a birthday present for my friend Ali.

I've also been meaning to tell you about forthcoming Shark Alley events, but I've run out of time as I must make some more foxy purses (they are proving very popular) - so I'll have to do that another day!  Bye for now.