Old Purse, New Handles

Last year I made this purse. I have gotten lots of use out of it and spent a lot of time making it so when my handles started wearing out I starting thinking of solutions for replacing them. I looked for some rectangular shaped links that I could use to attach new handles and couldn't find any the right size. I finally found some circles at Mill End that I thought would work. After cutting the handles off and attaching the circles on one side I decided that rather than make two handles again I would make one and allow it to slide through the rings when I open the purse and back out when I close it. This also meant that I needed to sew the new handle to the top flap so that the handle wouldn't slide too far down and allow the purse to hang lop-sided. It's not perfect (who's looking as closely at my purse as these pictures anyway) but it will greatly extend the life of my purse.



As far as making the handles I didn't want them to start to wear as quickly as last time. I figure that I was initially supposed to use fusible batting and used regular batting so that probably decreased the wear of the fabric. This time, I used some sew-in interfacing that I had lying around and fused it to the handle fabric. Then I sat the batting on top of that. I folded the handle in half and then each side in half again; kind of like double fold bias tape. I stitched the outsides and then added stitching 1/4" widths apart to stabilize all the layers.



The hardest part was stitching the handles onto the existing purse straps. I initially tried to layer them so I could make another X through both handles for strength and also hide the ends of the straps. That was way too many layers for my machine to handle so I attached them with just one double line of stitching. You can see the ends of the handles a little bit but this was the best that I could do and again, no one will be looking at it as closely as these pics.



I really like this new handle. It is very easy to open the purse by sliding the handle through the rings and I just grab the end of the handle and it closes back up again. I especially like the new length. I guess I much prefer a shoulder-length purse than one I have to carry in my hand.