Purple Purse Part 2 Testing

If you've been keeping up with what's going on here you have seen Purple Purse Part 1 .

So far I have decided I want a deep purple or as some say a aubergine in a suede like or velvet fabric. I located a pretty aubergine at JoAnn's. It's a knit with VERY little stretch, but to combat this for my test run I fused woven stabilizer to the back of the pieces. I cut out over sized pieces of woven stabilizer for each pattern piece (starting with just the two front and back pieces. Fused this to the fabric and then cut out the pattern pieces (only the two front and back outsides at this point).

Stitched the two front bottoms together, then lightly pressed (did not want to lose the faux suede look of the Alova fabric) the seam open.

Then I top stitched the center seam allowance. In the photo you can see the white of the woven stabilizer and the deep purple fabric.

This photo is upsidedown, but you can see the pressed open seam allowance and the pleat markings. I marked the pleats, then noticed that the pleats could be placed differently. So I remarked them and pin folded the pleats to test.

Here I show how I sewed the pleats. Starting from the folded edge (closest to my finger) I back stitched and had the machine in the needle down position. Sewing the pleat in a reversed 'L' back stitching at the beginning and the stress point (at the corner, after turning the fabric to start the long end or the reversed 'L') and again at the end of the fabric edge.

Here you can see the end result of the pleats, although the picture is bad (as I had to lighten it a lot so that the photo would show the pleats).

Next to sew the top piece to the bottom pieces to complete the front and back. (wish me luck!)