Nora Purse by Swoon

I love making purses for people!  There is the fun of discussing the style and features, picking out fabric, seeing it come together, and then the joy of seeing their face light up (or receiving an excited message) when they get the purse and hold it in their hands.  It makes all the time I spend with my seam ripper totally worth it!  This purse is the Nora by Swoon.  It is a doctor bag style purse but it doesn't use the metal purse frame that most doctor bags require.  It opens wide when the lock is open, but squishes closed nicely!

The pattern has 2 short handbag straps, I added on the cross body strap

This was only my second purse with large amounts of vinyl, and it fought me a little.  I wasn't able to sew all the way up the gussets, and after breaking 9 needles, I accepted that and worked with what I could do!

Inside is a zippered pocket on one side

The outside is fabric left over from my very first quilt - some I found at Joann's many years ago!  It was only a tiny scrap, but more than enough to make the outside of this purse!  This is the smallest size of the pattern, and it's still kind of big!  Not "carry the kitchen sink" big, but definitely will hold a decent amount of random stuff.  Inside features Tula Pink's True Colors Daisy fabric in grey/white. I had a good amount of that left over, so look for it soon in another bag!

Changes:  

Instead of the twist lock the purse calls for, I used a tongue lock.  I did have to cut the top tab down by almost 2", but since I used vinyl, I just chopped it off to the right length when I finally got to that part and redid the top stitching before I put the lock piece on.

Back phone pocket - I added this pocket to be centered between the outer straps, but next time I need to go down about a 1/4" lower at least, the pattern called for the strap to be attached barely above where I put the pocket - oops!  I trimmed a little extra off the strap at the back and moved it up to sew it on.

I love the boxed pocket method, gives a nice clean pocket that doesn't need lots of pieces!

Extra pockets - I added on a line of slip pockets inside because you can't have too many pockets!

2 bigger pockets and a pen pocket right in the middle.  Because pens like to hide!

Cross body strap - I attached the connectors to the side panels, just above the boning.  After I finished the purse, I took it to measure the customer and see where she wanted it to hang (I'm not ready for an adjustable vinyl strap yet!) and then sewed the strap on to the rectangular rings.

Once the purse is full of everything, the lining will settle in and straighten up, but ironing was a little difficult with the vinyl since I didn't want to scorch it!  I will definitely be making this purse again; it was lots of fun!  And I found a great price and stocked up on the boning it uses for the top, so I HAVE to use it up...LOL!