Eat. Craft. Sow: wallet

Babushka Clutch pattern from Spotlight

When my niece turned 11, Miss G wanted me to make her a little bag from a pattern that we picked up at Spotlight. It is called the Babushka Clutch.

She also picked the material to use as her cousin loves purple. It’s the easiest little clutch to make and you can download the pattern from the website. The pattern needs to be printed at 200%. Instructions are provided.

But this is what you should end up with:

outer fabric, lining and interfacing for the main part of the pattern
outer fabric, lining and interfacing for the lower front section
magnetic closure

I have never made a clutch or used a magnetic closure so this was really fun and a challenge even though the pattern was simple. I had visions of the closure not matching up.

I also added a little handle to this pattern that I cut out as 10 inches in length, 2.5 inches wide and folded it in half after I sewed it together. I used the two fabrics and interfacing for strength.

And as a little something extra, I also made a matching little zipper pouch to be placed inside the bag.

Miss G also wanted one of these for herself and so we have picked up some of the Babushka fabrics that is now available at Spotlight that is shown in the top picture.

So have some fun with this little clutch. There is so much you could do with this. Add a zipper or mobile phone pocket inside or you could make the closure a zipper instead of a magnet which is what I am thinking of doing for Miss G.

Would love to see what you come up with!

Happy Sewing!!!

Hello everyone, how was your weekend. Mine was busy with attending a baby shower, working in the garden, Granny coming to stay and a very sick little boy who has started walking!!!

So I hope this tutorial was worth the wait as it has been something that I have been wanting to make for the girls for a while.

Every time we visit the library I always think to myself “I must make the girls a library bag” and I wanted it to be something that was handy but not in the way so I decided to make them a library bag wallet.

Yep that’s right, a drawstring library bag that folds down to a wallet and I can put in the console of the car and have it handy when we next visit the library.

So here it is:

Library Bag Wallet

The finished bag measures 16 inches by 16 inches and the pocket measures 8 inches by 9 inches.

So you will need to cut your main fabric as 32 inches in length plus 3 inches for seam allowance (35 inches in length).

The pocket I cut as 8 1/2 inches by 9 1/2 inches, I used a 20 inche long zipper and I cut the cord/ribbon at a length of 36 inches.

Now to get started:

With the main fabric for the bag, I serged all sides first but if you don’t have a overlocker you can use the zigzag stitch or just cut your fabric out with pinking shears.

Now to sew the zipper to the pocket first. With the fabric that I cut out for the pocket I first ironed a seam of 1/4 inch all the way around:

Then with the zipper I sewed across the end so that it will not come apart:

(some photo’s were taken using my mobile as the batteries were flat on my camera. Sorry for the poor quality)

Then I opened the zipper all the way out:

Normally when sewing a zipper to fabric you sew the material with wrong side facing up and then you iron the fabric down and top stitch, but I am sewing the zipper all the way around, that is why I have ironed the seam down first (hope that makes sense).

With the seam now ironed down, fold the fabric in half and mark the middle. The following picture shows how the wallet is going to look once the zipper is on:

Half of the zip goes on either side of the fabric. Now I found it easier to pin it all the way around and then sew it on because if you don’t have the bottom and the opening directly where you have marked the middle of each side then the pocket will not be even and it will not zip properly, like this:

FAIL

So start with the bottom of the zipper and then work it all the way around. Sew zipper on using your zipper foot:

With your finished pocket it is now time to stitch it to your library bag. So with right sides of fabric together measure in 3 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches in at the corner, pin and sew the pocket to the top fabric only. I only sewed the sides and bottom so that the top was left open to be used as a pocket when the bag is not folded away:

To finish the library bag, first I folded the bag in half, wrong side facing each other and sewed one side only together. Then using my hem ruler I marked the top seam for the cord to be threaded through 1 1/2 inches down and sewed.

After you have done this pin and sew the other side of the library bag together but start about 1 inche below where you sewed the top seam for the cord to thread through:

Now to thread the cord through. I found it easier to thread the cord using a safety pin but first I placed a small amount of sticky tape around the end (a bit like making the top of a shoe lace) then put the pin through the sticky tape: