The Purge and A Book Review

My friend Shirley of SimpleSew gave me the Sew & Stitch Embroidery book by Alyssa Thomas a few months ago, and I started working on the fold over feather clutch pattern inside the book (page 111).  I finished the feather over a month ago and then it sat, you see I wasn't that happy with it.  2 issues:

• I used a jean like material and it was very stretchy, so there ended up being some fabric distortions.
• Said jean material is dark in color so I used tear away stabilizer to get the pattern onto the fabric.

Here is how I played with the fabric distortion:

I added a little pleat to cover up the stretch and to make it a design element, I added 3 pleats to the back of the pouch.

The second problem was a little more harder to fix, I couldn't get the stabilizer out, I tried my best and got most of it out, just little bits of white here and there.

I used Vera of Negligent Style's Tutorial to add the strap and she also recommended to go to a hardware store for snap hook and D-ring, which is fantastic since I am all out of those things in my sewing room.  So this is the best my hardware store could do,

It's not the fanciest hook, but I think it will work.

The book is pretty nice, it has a few embroidery patterns I would like to try, but this is my favorite pattern from it, I think I will make a few more, just not on dark fabrics.
I'm linking up to The Purge, first linky party, cause I am sending this to a new home and it won't sit lonely in my house, I look forward to doing some more purging in the next weeks, you should join too!
Update:  It is in it's new home and she LOVES IT!  The interior is to her style with skulls, I only had small irregular pieces of these fabrics so I made a QAYG style lining.

 The awesome Vera, mentioned above sent me a skull zipper pull to put on the pouch.

Not only did Jenna in the UK get the feather pouch but she also got  a bird bone mini quilt, you can see it here.

and also The Craft Book Sew Along.
buttons on the right side of this blog.