The patchwork purse project I am going to show you is done with crazy patchwork. I have to explain first what’s Crazy Patchwork.

Crazy Patchwork is a Victorian quilting technique who started in the 1870 and keeps being popular now days. The method is to appliqué pieces of materials, different fabrics, lace and ribbons in the base material, and decorated with fancy stitches, buttons and other decorations. Using a base material makes it easy to appliqué on top any different type of fabrics, like silk or velvet. Crazy patchwork admits any combination of materials you like.  You can use a thermo adhesive lining base material and glue the top fabrics to the base in the combination of your choice. Then, you can use different stitches to sew them together, by machine or handsew however you like.

The patchwork purse with crazy patchwork:

You will need two pieces of thermo adhesive base material of 7 1/4 by 5 1/2, coordinated patchwork threads, several scraps for the crazy patchwork, a decorative ribbon for the draw string.

Stick to the base material different pieces of velvet, silk and cotton materials, and add some ribbons, use thermo adhesive paper to stick it together, so the whole thing will be pretty stable.

( If this is your first time doing appliqué and using thermo adhesive paper, here comes a short explanation. Buy a piece of thermo adhesive paper for patchwork in your nearest patchwork supplier

The very first patchwork bag I am going to show you is the one I made myself. It is pretty easy to make. What you need is 45 x 50 cm of fabric for the interior of the bag, plus two patchwork fabric pieces exactly the same size for the outside of the bag. You will also need wooden purse handles, or the handles of your choice, and buttons for decoration. You might prefer embroidery threads to decorate your patchwork bag. It’s totally up to you.

  Start by choosing the decoration of the front of your patchwork bag. If you are going to use embroidery, do it before sewing the handbag together. Cut the four pieces of material   45 x 50 centimeters as we mentioned before. Now take a piece of lining and a piece of the outside fabric and sew right side together, mark 20 cm from the bottom with your marker exactly. Sew as seen on the picture on the left. Remember one piece of lining and one outside together, sew both of the pieces of your patchwork handbag .  Sew leaving a seam allowance of 1/4” or 0.5 cm by machine or hand sewing.

Make sure your measurements of the 20 cm are correct in both fabrics, the lining and the outside one. Pin together before sewing marking exactly the 20 cm in each side. Do the same with the other piece of lining and outside fabric. We will continue working in the inside of the fabrics until we are finish.

Now we need to position the two linings together and the two outside fabrics together, right sides facing in. It might seam a little awkward now, because the part is being sewn is inside and looks a bit messy. But believe me it would be ok. Sew in the following way: Using a round plate mark a circle at each corner with your fabric marker, use pins to pin the two fabrics together right sides in.  Remember that now we are preparing the shape of the handbag, the bottom of the handbag.
As you can see in the Picture 2, sew the two lining fabric right side together, mark the round corners first and leave a small opening (about 6 cm) like in the picture to turn the bag inside out when finish. Try to get as close as you can to the line already sewn (remember the 20 cm of the other side of the handbag), if you need to leave a small gap is OK, you can always finish those bits off by hand. Now sew the two outside fabrics together with the round marks, there is no need for a gap here. Start sewing from the point you stopped before, the 20 cm you sewn before. Pin together the whole project to avoid any movement of the material while sewing.
When you are sewing the two outside materials, start from the joint point of the two pieces and continue all the way to the other side. Think that this would be the outside of your material. Use a good quality 100% quilting thread to make sure is resistant. When you are sewing the interior or lining together, leave a gap for turning the bag inside out. When you are tracing the round corner, be creative and use the round plate of your choice. but always make sure you followed the marked line around the material with pins first and then slowly, sew it with your sewing machine. It can also be sewn by hand.

Now is time to turn it inside out. Brilliant. Now you can finish the lining by using some hiding stitch to close the gap. Press together so the sound corner have a good shape. If you couldn’t sew all the way in the two connection in the middle of each side, now you can fix it by hand sewing. 

Grab two wooden handles and sew each one to the rectangle edge. If you do it by hand, you would not notice the sewing. By sewing machine is more difficult, specially because the wooden handles will make it very difficult to maneuver.  Of course, you can choose the type of handles you prefer. Below I show you my patchwork handbag finished, I used a pretty rose to decorate the front side.

   You can see in this picture I used plain fabrics, not patchwork. To change the model and do a patchwork bag, choose a block or a chess design, combine the material of your choice, then cut it to the right size and make the bag in the same way. Creativity is the best quality for patchworkers. Enjoy it.

Before the invention of a sewing machine, everything was sewn by hand. Most early attempts to invent the sewing machine, tried to replicate the hand sewing method, and this was a general failure.

Some inventors hoped the embroidery, where the needle is used to produce decorative stitches, the stitches would join, but it didn’t.

The British inventor Thomas Saint was the first to patent a design for a sewing machine in 1790. His machine was meant to be used on leather and canvas only. A working model of his sewing machine was never built.

The first known attempt at a mechanical device for sewing was by the German born Charles Fredrick Wiesenthal, who was working in England. He obtained a patent for his sewing machine in England in 1755, for which he used a needle with an eye at one end. This needle was designed to be passed through the cloth by a pair of mechanical fingers and grasped by the other side by a second pair.

  This method of recreating the hand sewing using needle passing through the fabric, meaning the entire length of the thread had to do the same. The mechanical limitations meant that the thread had to be short, needing frequent stops to renew the supply.
The first sewing machine was designed and patented in 1790 by the British inventor Thomas Saint. Saint's machine, which was designed to sew leather and fabric, used a single thread and formed a chain stitch. Needle but not used an awl to pierce the material was sewing. Another mechanism placed the thread through the hole, after which a stick like a needle with a split point was the thread through the bottom, where a hook picked up the thread and take it to the front for the next stitch . When the cycle was repeated a second loop formed with the first in the bottom of garment, creating a chain stitch closure. However, the machine prototype Saint never happened.
The first practical sewing machine was manufactured in 1829 by French tailor Barthelemy Thimonnier. He used a hooked needle that moved downward by a foot pedal and returned to its original position by a spring. Like Saint's machine, it produced a chain stitch. When Thimonnier installed 80 of its machines in a clothing firm, tailors of Paris brought him into bankruptcy and eventually died bankrupt in England.

The first lockstitch machine was created by American inventor Walter Hunt 1834. The machine, which employed both a needle with an eye on the tip and an oscillating shuttle. Walter Hunt did not patent his invention at the time of the sewing machine, so that later when Hunt attempted to obtain a patent, his request was disregarded on grounds of abandonment.
The American inventor Elias Howe developed a sewing machine that contained the same basic elements of Hunt’s sewing machine and patented it in 1846. Another American inventor, Isaac Merritt Singer, patented a similar machine and Howe won the lawsuit he filed against him by saying that Singer had usurping his patent.

Isaac Singer began making her sewing machine in 1850. Elias Howe sought him, informing him that the machines he was making use of an infringed patent legally belonged to him. As their economic situation was desperate, offered to sell the rights for $ 2,000. Singer turned down the offer of an extremely rude way, even physically threatened Howe. Howe retired having learned from their bad experience in England with Saint Thomas. Howe returned shortly with a new price of $ 25,000, and not for the rights of the patent, but only for the right to manufacture sewing machines under license. Singer and his partner, attorney Edward Clark, ran roughly the fragile inventor. Thus began what the New York papers called “War of the sewing machines”.

Isaac Merritt Singer has become synonymous with the sewing machine. Trained as an engineer, he built a rotary sewing machine being repaired in a shop in Boston.  His machine used a shuttle service flight instead of a rotating needle  and was mounted vertically and included a clip to hold the fabric in place. One arm was fixed to hold the needle and included a basic tensioning system.

Singer, however, was responsible for the combination of several patents in the field of sewing machines and lay the groundwork for mass production of these machines.
Other important discoveries in this field were the rotating coil, which was incorporated in 1850 into a machine patented by American inventor Allen Benjamin Wilson, and the intermittent feeding of four movements to move the material between stitches, which was part of the same patent. The foot restraint, a device with a spring pressure to hold the fabric against the work surface, was developed by Singer after his first machine patented.
The first sewing machines widely accepted be activated by turning a knob. He later added a pedal and a crank device that allowed the operator to use both hands to guide the material under the needle. The modern sewing machines are equipped with electric motors that are activated with a foot-operated switch or knee.

Meanwhile, Allen Wilson developed an alternative shuttle, which was an improvement over Singer's and Howe. However, John Bradshaw had patented a similar device and was threatening to sue. Wilson decided to change track and try a new method. Entered into partnership with Nathaniel Wheeler to produce a circular machine with a hook instead of a shuttle. This was much quieter and smoother than other methods, and the Wheeler and Wilson Company produced more machines between 1850 and 1860 than any other manufacturer in the world. Wilson also invented the feeding mechanism of four movements, which is still seen in all sewing machines today.

This system of sewing machines was a forward, down, back, and even movement, which attracted over the fabric a uniform and smooth movement. Charles Miller patented the first sewing machine for buttonholes (US10609).
Through companies in the 1850s more and more sewing machines were being invented and the inventors were trying to sue each other. This triggered a war of patents known as the War of sewing machine, mentioned above.

  In 1856, the combination of sewing machines was formed, consisting of Singer, Howe, Wheeler and Wilson, and Grover and Baker. These four companies pooled their patents, meaning that all other manufacturers had to obtain a license and paying $ 15 per machine. This lasted until 1877 when the last patent expired.
In the 1840s a machine shop was established at the Merrow mill to develop specialized machinery for weaving operations. In 1877 the first world crochet machine was invented and patented by Joseph M. Merrow, then president of the company. This machine serger crochet was the first sewing machine production. The Merrow Machine Company became one of the largest U.S. manufacturers of sewing machines overlock, and remains a global presence in the 21st century as the last U.S. manufacturer of sewing machines over lock.

James Edward Allen Gibbs (1829-1902), a farmer from Raphine in Rockbridge County, Virginia patented the first single chain stitch sewing machine, thread on 2 June 1857. In partnership with James Wilcox, Gibbs became a principal in Wilcox & Gibbs Sewing Machine Company. Wilcox & Gibbs commercial sewing machines are still used in the 21th century.
In 1905 Merrow won a lawsuit against Wilcox & Gibbs of the rights of the original crochet stitch.
Sewing machines continued to be made in the structure more or less the same, with the most abundant decoration that appears well into the 1900s, when the first electric machines started to appear. The first electrical machines were developed by Singer Sewing Co. and introduced in 1889. [6] At first these were standard machines with a motor attached to one side. As more households to power, these became more popular and the motor was gradually introduced into the housing.
In 1946 TOYOTA sewing machine was first built under the strict supervision of the founder of Toyota, Mr. Kiichiro Toyoda. Mr Toyoda had a strong belief that home-use products must be “functional and beautiful.”
In 1987, Orisol (Israel), who pioneered the introduction of the first computer-controlled vision of industrial sewing machines in the manufacture of footwear in the world. Incorporating the sense of vision (sophisticated image processing) for the computer controlled sewing systems markedly enhanced the accuracy of the stitching process multi-part correct or compensate in real time to any deflection, deformation or dynamic movement of sewn parts compared to conventional results of computerized sewing machines.
Modern machines can be computer controlled and use stepper motors or sequential cams to achieve very complex patterns. Most of these are now made in Asia and the market is becoming more specialized

Sewing machines can make a variety of patterns or straight stitch. These  sewing machines can pull, hold and move the fabric under the sewing needle to form the pattern stitch of your choice. Most home sewing machines and some industrial use a stitch two threads call stitching stitch. Most industrial sewing machines using a looping stitch produced by a machine called a linking machine. Some old sewing machines  can do stitches in ridges. The mechanism for sliding the fabric can be a simple guide to work or be controlled by patterns (ej, Jacquard-type). Some machines can create  embroidery stitches. The special sewing machines for embroidery can have a frame to hold the work.

The typical structure of the sewing machine comprises a base from which the body of the machine supports. Within the body of the sewing machine’s gears are moving the needle. One arm comes out of the body of the sewing machine. The opposite end of arm ends with the head that supports the needle bar, outside the pulleys are determining the tension of the thread.
The sewing machines are different by the type of stitch you get from it.

Let’s start by reviewing the star sewing machine of Elna, the Elna 9500. The Elna Sewing Machine comes with this technical specifications:

• Full Color touch screen 122mm x 91mm –
• Automatic/Programmable Thread cutters
• Start/stop key – color-coded red green
• Built-in automatic needle threader –
• Upper and Bobbin thread sensor
• Programmable Needle Up/Down key
• 8 White LED lamps illuminate entire sewing area
• Computerized thread tension control
• Drop Feed Dog
• External memory device: ATA Card, USB memory key
• PC link: two-way USB communication
• Eco mode
• Independent bobbin-winding motor
• Presser bar sensor
• Extra presser foot lift
• Thread holder and cutter
• Automatic, programmable and manual tension
• Rotary horizontal hook with transparent bobbin cover
• Free arm embroidery
• Built-in carriage
• Hard-shell protective cover
• Multi-voltage
• Optional PC design CDs – .Jeff format
• Use a PC Card Adapter, USB key, CD-ROM (optional) or direct connection to computer to access more designs from the internet or Elna’s Design CD Collections.

As you can see from the very high standard specifications of the Elna 9500, this sewing machine offers everything you can possibly need.

Pfaff Grand Quilter

The Pfaff Grand Quilter has 9" x 6" work space, essential for sewing larger or bulky projects.

Features

- 1600 stitches per minute
- 9" x 6" work area
- large, removable extension table (18" x 24")
- perfectly adjusted stitches regardless of fabric thickness
- independent bobbin winding
- automatic threading
- quiet, vibration-free sewing
- hands-free reverse
- needle up/down
- electronic adjustable speed control
- knee lift

Pfaff 1246 Double Needle Compound Walking Foot Needle Feed Industrial Lockstitch Sewing Machine w/Table, Stand & Motor – FREE 100 Organ Needles

Pfaff 1246 Double Needle Compound Walking Foot Needle Feed Industrial Lockstitch Sewing Machine w/Table, Stand & Motor – FREE 100 Organ Needles

Double Needle 1/4" Gauge. Compound Walking Foot and Needle Feed. Modern Compact Industrial Styling Flatbed. Includes Table, Stand, And Motor. Industrial Sewing Machine. Available in 110V or 220V.$5,529.00 USD

Pfaff Sewing Machine Specifications

• 110V (220V optional)
• Modern, compact industrial styling
• New alternating top feed with greater traction power
• Excellent sewing results even when several piles of tacky or slippery materials of varying thickness are sewn
• Consistent stitch setting in all materials
• Proven, effective power transmitted by cleated belt drive
• Fully enclosed driving belt
• Large vertical hooks: hence 60% larger thread capacity than standard-size hooks
• Hook protected by an overload clutch incorporated in the machine as standard
• Easy maintenance
• Automatic hook lubrication
• Hook shaft carried in anti-friction bearings
• Built-in bobbin winder within operator’s field of vision
• Most parts incorporated in 1250 series machines are identical with those of 240 series machines
• Can also be supplied in long-arm versions (-798/..) with a maximum clear work space of 850 mm

To start patchwork is better to use a simple to use sewing machine, and also cheap. For around $200 you can buy a Janome 4045LX Harmony, a Necchi 3832 and a Toyota SE06R. They are all good, but for a little more I recommend this models:

	Singer 7436 70 Stitch Ingenuity Computer Electronic Sewing Machine, 3×1-Step BH, Auto Tension & Threader, 13 Needle Positions, Drop Feed, LED Lights, for $ 249.00   The SINGER INGENUITY is a fully electronic sewing machine. This beginners sewing machine has a full range of utility, decorative, quilting, heirloom, and stretch stitches. Each stitch is electronically formed and optimally set, which means every stitch is sewn with exact precision. The SINGER INGENUITY also threads quickly and easily with the 6-Second Threading System. And with pushbutton stitch selection, even selecting a stitch is very easy.
	Brother PC210 FS Project Runway Sewing Machine , $ 229,00 from Amazon It’s just right as a next step machine for beginners, a dependable machine for the occasional sewing session or a delightful introduction to sewing technology for those hobbyists returning to the sewing world. Experience the joy of creating with simple controls, beautiful stitching, quiet operation and advanced technology.
	Brother XL-3750 Convertible Free-Arm Sewing Machine with Quilting Features $138.88

This are three of the best sewing machines in the market for the price. For less than $300 you can start sewing, learning about patchwork and how to use your sewing machine. And when you feel confident enough, sell your old sewing machine and get into the intermediate level sewing machines for quilting and patchwork. You will love it.

Toyota SE06RB 20-Stitch, 1-Step Buttonhole Sewing Machine same as White 1999 and 4075 with FREE 90 minute Learn to Sew Video – REFURBISHED

Factory Serviced. 20 Built-In Stitches. 40 Stitch Functions. One-Step Auto Size Buttonhole. Built-In Needle Threader. Pressure Adjustment And Drop Feed. Adjustable Stitch Length And Width. Three Needle Positions. Full Featured Sewing Machine. Use Serge Cutter Attachment for cutting, sewing and overcasting in one operation!.

$199.00 USD

Bernina 650 Deco Embroidery Machine by Brother in Japan,Thread Trim & Low Bobbin Warning – FREE PED Basic Box, Card & Software for Downloading Designs

60 Built-in Designs. 50 Exclusive Designs. 3 Alphabet Font Styles and Sizes: Block, Serif & Outling. Largest font size is 1 1/2″ inches. 90 Degree Incremental Rotation of Designs and Lettering. Design Tracking. Auto Centering. Auto Thread Trimmers. Low Bobbin Indicator. 4 5/6″ X 4 5/6″ Embroidery Area. LCD Touch Screen. Embroidery-Only Machine.