Cross body purse and reversible newsboy caps. Spring cleaning

I've been busy making things from leftover material.  I had quite a lot of fabric left over from the dress in my previous post.  First off I made I made thisEmzed foldover clutch purse.  There is also a facebook page with a lot of gorgeous purses.

Rather than a clutch I wanted a cross body bag so I just lengthened the strap.

It has 2 zippered pouches on the 'outside'.

And on the inside there is a pocket behind the card slots, and a hidden zipper compartment on the opposite side.

It is optional whether to add snaps to the inside,  I wasn't going to, but once I made it up the outside pieces fell apart slightly and spoiled the look, so I added a couple of sew on snaps to the inside on each side.

I love this bag.  It is just the right size for all the essentials - it takes my phone, cards, cash, tissues, keys.  The only thing I wish I'd done differently is to attach detachable straps, so when I'm using a larger bag I can just pop it in and use it as a purse.

I wore this with me new dress when I went to lunch with friends on the weekend and felt tres chic with a smart dress and matching bag.

It was quite time consuming to make, but worth the effort and a great way to use up some excess fabric.

Also made from scraps were a couple of  reversible newsboy caps.  I couldn't find a pattern that was exactly what I wanted.  I knew I wanted  it to be held by elastic at the back to get a comfortable fit, but couldn't find any free patterns that had the elastic.

I ended up combining 2 patterns, and then adding my own twist so there was elastic at the back.  First I traced the  pattern pieces for the top from This free sunhat pattern and the instructions from free reversible newsboy hat.  For the brim I traced around the brim of a baseball cap I already have.  I then had to adapt my own take to get the elastic on the back.

The first one turned out too tight, and I didn't get the band right.  One side is made from red cotton duck, and the other side is a floral quilting cotton.

Too tight!

The second one I was able to fine tune my own directions and it turned out just right.  The blue is more of that fabric leftover from the dress and the cross body purse.  The inside is leftover poplin from a shirt made last year.

I've also been busy spring cleaning.  I've washed the outside of all my mothers windows and done about half of mine.  I'm also cleaning my net curtains.  After winter they were infested with mold.  I found the best way to bring them up clean is to first scrub the affected areas with Sards Wonder Soap.  I then soaked overnight in Nappisan - actually they had about 15 hours to soak as I put them in around 2pm and took out around 7am.  Then put on a gentle machine wash with Nappisan added to the washing detergent, then hang out in sunshine.  Lovely and clean again.

I've also subscribed to Burda magazine.  The July issue just came into the shops here a couple of weeks ago, and on Saturday I got my November issue in the post.  Yay, no more impatient waiting.