16th-Century Purses Made for SCA Largess

This was a random little project done in about two weeks. I was asked by Duquesa Juana Isabella de Montoya y Ramirez if I could contribute to the gift basket given by the King and Queen of the West at the SCA’s West-An Tir War over July 4th Weekend 2010. Knowing my predilection for purses, she suggested small bags of some kind. I was honored to be asked to participate in such a thing for the first time, so I said yes.

I perused my books of historical purses, plus some new photos I’d take at the V&A recently and quickly settled on these two charming little specimens.

I still had scraps of burgundy velvet leftover from my wedding gown in The Stash. Plus I found bits of gold and silver trims. The round silver bobbles (buttons, actually) and gold tassels had to be acquired. Otherwise, I was set.

Patterning was fast and easy. I just eyeballed the shape and size, drew that on muslin, basted the muslin together for a test-fit, and then used the muslin as the pattern (adding a half-inch seam allowance).

I used black silk twill scraps from The Stash for the linings. Bag linings, y’know, because these are bags, LOL.

The main body of each purse was sewn on the machine. Sorry, I’m just not that historically accurate! Besides, it would have taken forever and they’d have fallen apart.

I did sew all the trim on by hand, and for the drawstring purses, I made hand-bound eyelets to run the drawstring through. I was going to make lucet cord for the drawstrings (finally taught myself how to use the lucet fork I bought a year ago), but I ran out of time to make long enough ones. Darnit.

On the hanging bag, I decided against placing three tassels on the bottom edge. It looked too ostentatious. Instead, one tassel as the closure looked more refined. Still, both designs followed the historical versions pretty closely.