Pillow Ticking purse

Many years ago, Inspirations by Country Bumpkin in Australia, had an article on using pillow ticking as a base for embroidery. That sounded like a good idea to me because I had some of this fabric. I found that it needled very well and was a good pick-up and go project.

Isn't amazing how things finally "turn out"? I did this embroidery and made a glasses (spectacles) case. Well, it was a little too big for glasses even the large glasses that I was wearing back then before these narrow ones arrived on the shelves. So, I kept looking at the glasses case and decided that I would make the front of lovely and interesting purse and this is the product. This is the large view of the handbag. It is lined with some dupioni which I had just received in the mail. Funny how those things happen isn't. What we order for one thing we use on something else.

This is the full view of the handbag. I put a beaded handle on it, which was a vintage necklace that I got someplace. That necklace was too long so doubled it and then the bag was finished.

The bag measures: At the tallest point 8 inches and it is 6 inches along the bottom.






The flowers motif is made of wire-edged ribbon. I had to make them specially for the handbag because the glasses case was quite bare of anything but the line stitching.

The pillow ticking embroidery technique is very easy and I hope just as easily explained.

• Simply embroider the lines of the pillow ticking with crazy quilt stitches, then embellish the stitches with other little accent stitches just as we do in crazy quilting.

• Some of the lines of the pillow ticking can be covered with narrow braid, or silk ribbon stitches. Don't forget the beads. There is no limit as to what you can do to cover those pillow ticking lines. I used all kinds of stitches and embellishments, some of which were "invented" just for this piece.

This handbag is available for sale.