Imagine you have a party to attend in the evening and you have this beautiful fabric that matches the color of the gown you will be wearing – and you wish you can make a purse out of this fabric to match your dress. It will be beyond wonderful. But do you have the time to sew this one – cutting and sewing and making enormous calculations is sometimes beyond my simpler brain. But the sweet clutch I will be making now is nothing to get your brain into twist. Just make one in the afternoon and take it out the same night. Yes, I told you, it is beyond wonderfully easy.
How to make this easy clutch.
You will need your preferred outer fabric, interfacing to stiffen the fabric, some flannel or thick fabric as padding, an 8 inch long zip.
You can also insert plastic canvas pieces to the clutch if you want stiffness and if your interfacing is not thick enough. You do not need the plastic canvas on the flap.
Cut out two pattern pieces from the outer fabric in the dimensions given below. Cut the interfacing and thick fabric in the same dimensions.
Trim the seam allowance from the interfacing and adhere to your fabric. Attach the interfacing to your fabric with hot iron.
Keep the thick fabric/flannel pieces on the back of each of the two outer pieces. You will be treating these as one –Â Â ie one outer piece, one interfacing, and one thick inside layer – all taken as one piece.Â
Keep the two outside pieces (or the sandwich of outer pieces, interfacing and thick fabric treated as one) together rightsides facing against each other. Sew them together along the edge. Leave a 2 -3 inch space unstitched.
Clip along the edges of the seam allowance after trimming the seam allowance. You will have to clip a lot along the seam allowance.
Turn it out.
You can now insert plastic canvas pieces (cut into 2 pieces to fit the inside of the clutch body) through the hole.
Now sew along the edges – sew the hole shut as well in the process.
Keep the 8″ zip, zipper pull down on the outer edge of your purse piece which is kept wrong side up. Keep one edge of the zip along the straight edge .
Sew the zipper to the edge with a zipper foot on your machine.
After sewing this, open your zip and keep the other edge of the zipper along the fold of the flap. When doing this the clutch would automatically be folded.
Twist it as in the picture above and hand sew in place. After the sewing is finished it will look like this.
Keep the sides aligned and Sew from the top along the two sides.
You can add your own embellishments to the clutch now. Make a fabric flower and attach on top.
Cut out the petals from organza/organdy fabric. You can check out this post on making a fabric rose. Tie the petals together.
Attach on the purse.
(If you want to keep the flap closed always you can add a magnetic snap or velcro to the pattern – this has to be added before the fabric pieces are stitched together.)
Related posts : Bag making supplies – what you need to make bags ; Best bag making fabrics; How to make a phone purse.
Brilliant. I will try it out