Blushing Bride

Dum dum da dum...dum DUM da dum.... That's the wedding song. Did you get that? Sorry, I'm aiming for levity as I have the news on right now and I am so very glad I do not live in Baltimore (and if you do you're in my prayers tonight). Anyhoodle...

My cousin is getting married in a few weeks and his fiance had asked me to make some bags for her bridesmaids. I said sure, even though I generally shy away from weddings as the fabrics can be finicky and the matchy-matchiness of everything can be frustrating. Luckily, she wanted a simple design and was fine with me flipping the colors so hers would be the color of her bridesmaids gowns, and theirs would be the color of hers.

These are absolutely boring to look at in pictures, but so feminine and pretty in person. They are basic zip clutches, but these have the zipper set down in a bit so it doesn't look so much like a change purse.

The maids bags are all in ivory satin and lace, while the bride's is blush satin with an ivory lace overlay. Can I just tell you this bag drove me a little crazy? I thought I found the perfect pinks at Joann's, but was promptly informed that they were "too purple" and "not blush" and "all wrong" and "I don't like that" and so on and so forth (not by the bride--by my mother and sister). I make them sound quite sarcastic but I felt the same way. So I took a shot at ordering online as I came up empty at local shops, and had the adventure that is shopping at Fabric.com. That could be an entirely different post, but that site is not the place I once loved and ordered from constantly. After getting my nag on I received my satin and it was right on. The lace was almost orange, so I did what I do when I need fresh eyes on something. I laid everything out on the dining room table and went to bed, promptly forgetting about it all. When I came down the next morning my instant reaction of what looked best was actually using the ivory lace instead of one of the several colors I now had. Thank goodness for hassle-free returns.

Goodness, I didn't mean to get all into that.

My camera does not love picking up pink accurately, but this is the softest prettiest shade of blush pink. I can't think of a more feminine color. It's not one I could ever wear as I am quite fair with pink undertones (as my sisters tell me when we talk makeup), and I would be washed out completely, but I do love this color.

These bags were fairly simple to make. The most difficult part (after fiddling with creating a pattern) was making sure the lace and satin and interfacing stayed lined up and behaved themselves. I've never done an inset zipper like this  but it was really quite simple to do.

The one thing with this was that I didn't change out the zipper pulls as I had exact zippers and didn't want to pull them apart. That teeny pull gets a little lost in there, so I tied a small length of jewelry suede (I guess that's a thing? I got it in the jewelry aisle and it says suede on the package) to the pull to make it a little easier to get a hold of. And it really made quite the difference.

Tonight I made up my bag that I'm taking to this wedding, which I'll show you next. And while I will not swear off satin as it's quite simple to work with and so pretty, I'm thinking that lace can go straight to h-e-double sticks. I have no idea how people work with that stuff (I'm thinking of you, Grandma!). I have two diaper bags on order, and quilting cotton has never sounded so good.