Customer Reviews

Making Handbags & Purses: 50 Patterns & Designs from Casual to Corporate

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

After spending a number of years making rudimentary custom clutch bags to sell at craft fairs, this book would have made our life quite easy with ideas, innovation, and technique. After reviewing a copy of Carol Parks' book, we are considering re-entering the designing of custom purses. It definitely provides the beginner and master designer with "design food" for thought.

These are a bit, um, avant garde for my taste.

In my opinion, I found this book to have some of the ugliest handbags / purses that I have ever seen. I have no desire to recreate any of them.

Not a single bag style that I would recreate, I had started making handbags when I bought this book for inspiration, big mistake. All of the bags look like home-ec projects (and not from the talented kids) in unattractive colors and fabrics. The patterns are not cute or trendy, and I struggled to pick out even one good tip I could use. If you're the type that likes to wear sweatshirts with embroidered kittens and flowers on the front you might like this book, if not, don't waste your money.

You don't want to buy this bag if you are looking for handbag patterns to follow. The bags are ugly, but some of the design elements can easily be modified to make something a little more fashionable. There are some decent construction tips, which was the whole point of me buying the book.

There are some hideous bags in here. I bought the book for tips on sewing handbags, not for patterns luckily. The handbags features are more of a fiber art style, not fashionable. There are a few decent tips on construction, but nothing too fabulous.

If I'd had the chance to flip through this in the bookstore, I never would have bought it. There are no diagrams or illustrations, the directions are confusing, and the bags are generally hideous. (I would say that they were out of style, but virtually none of them could be said to have been stylish in any era.) If you're tempted to buy it based on the other reviews, do yourself a favor and check it out at a library or bookstore first. The (very) few tips it has to offer are better found elsewhere.