Purse Diary: Nighttime Sewing Marathon #2

So my nighttime purse-sewing marathon continued. As I said in the post two days ago, I tucked the corners of the sqare inside and sewed them, to make something resembling a cloth paper-grocery-bag.
Then, to give it shape, I made a deep pleat in on each side (I was copying the side pleats on the red bag in the photo, btw). Fortunately this matched the design of the lining I had gutted from the other purse.


I pinned the purse to the lining, right sides together, sewed all but one side, and then turned in right side out. Ta-da! A purse with three compartments!
Then I had to rip the whole thing apart and do it over because I realized I forgot to put in the straps that held the handles on. Which after an excruciating process, you can see below. (Sorry I forgot to take more pictures: it wasn't a very Christian part of the sewing). BTW in the picture above, you can see I pinned the pleats to the middle zipper section: I had to sew them by hand (and sewing through naughahyde without a thimble is rough, I'll tell you!). Later on I hand-sewed the pleat together that is pinned in the picture below.
When I was finished, I decided I really liked the brown and would probably use it in the fall. However, my outfit for the conference was blue, so I started making the button-on cover out of a favorite piece of Liberty of London fabric. Again, I started with a double square, sewn like a pillow. Here it is, fitted over top of the purse (which is upside down).I tucked in the corners and sewed them, as before, then sewed pleats in the sides to make it the same shape as the brown purse. Later on (on the plane, actually) I sewed four buttons onto the brown part of the purse to button the lining onto. I wasn't done the patchwork part of the lining, but for the conference, I had a purse! I hope this process was somewhat coherent! More to come....!