Signature Bags: 12 Trend-Setting Bag Patterns to Sew at Home

Fashionable and functional clutches, bags and totes!

Indulge your artistic side with Signature Bags! In this fashion-forward collection, you'll find clutches, totes and purses that will suit any occasion and complement any look.

Pattern designer and sewist Michelle Golightly has brought together her favorite projects that are sure to turn heads. While the term "handmade bags" is often associated with frumpy, misshapen pocketbooks your grandmother might carry, Michelle's designs have a fresh, fashionable feel. Detailed step-by-step instructions, informative illustrations and helpful tips make sewing the bags possible for any sewer. Whether you're dashing out the door with your Lunch Date Clutch, packing up your Farmer's Market Tote or gifting a friend with a Provence Travel Bag, the projects in Signature Bags would look at home on the runway, but they'll look even better on your arm!

International schooling and travel educated me in culture, history, music and art. From concert halls to parades down cobbled stone streets in tiny villages I performed as a fiddler, violinist, and pianist throughout Asia, Canada, USA, and Europe. I studied humanities and history for 6 months in Vienna where I witnessed some of the most magnificent operas written and performed in parks and recital halls. I try to be an artist in my own corner of the world and help others to be motivated to create extraordinary things. After marrying I began sewing for others; curtains, pillows, prom dresses and wedding dresses. I am inspired by fine fabrics, lace, beading, and color. Transitioning into designing bag patterns was seamless. After I constructed some of Lila Tueller's samples for International Quilt Market, she asked me to design a bag featuring her new line of laminated cotton. This pattern was unique enough that Patchwork Spezial magazine from Germany published it in German in 2011. Over the next three years I self-published eleven more patterns covering a diverse cross section from clutches, organizers, computer and iPad cases, dresses and coats for women a tweens, and even a formal/wedding dress. In 2014 Bernina Virtual Clubs choose to feature my Sweet Clutches pattern for one of their featured patterns. In partnering with Lila I continue to design patterns for her new fabric lines and distribute hardware kits for all of our patterns.