The headache purse!

First of all you must know a little background about this purse...I searched every fabric store I could think of near me, I even went a few towns away it was insane how many places I went, luckily my mom was willing to drive me around to keep me company! I finally found the PERFECT fabric :) This is the first(well now second) time I have ever tried making a purse, and I didn't even use a pattern! This is my second go round on this purse, the first one I made I measured everything an inch off on accident so it was really long and skinny and really hard to get into, also there were a bunch of raw edges, which drives me insane! With this new purse I am happy with EVERY single part EXCEPT the zipper area :( but I sewed and unpicked too many times I just wanted to finish. I sewed all the raw edges(that are enclosed) with a blanket stitch(on my machine)so the fabric doesn't fray except of course I forgot to on the zipper edges so then I sewed it a bunch of times on the outside cuz I don't want it to fray and fall apart after all my hard work...I am worried all the extra stitches makes it look a lot less nicer than it could :( Phooey. Any sewing tips are welcome!

There are obviously some flaws, but like I said, I am pretty happy with the result, except for the zipper area. As you can see in this pic, it doesn't close all the way, which I am fine with because I stick my keys in that hole. I am a little paranoid about the fabric fraying and coming undone after all my hard work so I stitched a LOT around the zipper. On my first purse the strap was corduroy all the way around so it was actually pretty uncomfortable and hard to adjust because it would grab onto my clothes. So this time I lined it and I love how it looks! P.S. corduroy is not the easiest to sew on, just for future reference.

I wanted to make sure that the zippers were easy to grab onto, I saw a similar idea on the internet so I just cut out a couple birdcages from my lining fabric and stuffed them a tiny bit. At the last minute before I sewed everything together, I decided just to put a flat back pocket on the back of my purse(on the outside) I am very happy I did! Once again, I wanted to make sure I didn't have any raw edges, so to make the pockets I just sewed around two pieces of fabric, left a little slot, turned it right side out and sewed the slot closed. Then I used a zig zag stitch just around the edges to make it lay more flat. That is also how I did my front pockets but used the two different fabrics so that I could have cute lining.

This is my first purse, the picture doesn't show how long and skinny it really is...although it was cute, it really was hard to get into and I am all about convenience!