The black bag....

I got this bag in Sept at a Women's Expo here in Utah, I fell in love with it but it was too big, and I don't really want a huge bag. Just the rock and roll look to it was so great! The flowers are made using zipper teeth! I saw potential and took it home, figuring out how I could make it smaller by taking it apart and cutting it down a bit.


The Before picture, you can see how happy I am about this! The whole time I'm thinking I'm going to blog about this!

The bag measured 20" wide by 14" high and about 3" deep at the bottom, the material is black patent pleather.

The back of the bag, it had this great detailing that I was excited to work with. There are gathered ties that go around the top of the bag,



After cutting open the side and bottom seams, I discovered it was lined, I cut down the bottom piece, it was a long oval shape, and took off almost 2 inches at both ends, and shaved off about an half inch off the sides, I wanted it to have a smaller base.


There was a separating pocket in the middle of the bag for storage, and it took up space so I took it out completely, it will be used in a future project!

I cut open the back and took off 2 inches there, and then almost 2 inches from each side, and over an inch from the bottom, I would have taken off more but the flowers came down that much in the front.



I sewed it back together using my Bernina 830, (My favorite sewing machine!) and a leather needle, with heavy-duty craft thread. The whole project took about 2 hours and came out so great! I know it doesn't look like that much of a difference, but I was able to take it down to 16" wide, 13" high, and just over 2 1/2" deep, and I'm very happy with the final product! And my custom sized fall/winter bag!