I'm writing this from bed, feeling a little queasy after a night out on the tiles for the work Christmas do. I had a great night, lots of fun, banter and dancing, and far too much gin! I was also really pleased that my homemade Secret Santa was very well received. £5 is a really tough budget these days so I much prefer converting that into materials and spending the time making something rather than trawling the high street or even the web. Here are a few photos of the work in progress (I did have a few false starts...) and the finished piece!
Here's Muriel 'helping' me cut the pattern. It's the Grainline Studio/ Designlovefest Envelope Clutch I mentioned in my previous post. I think it's come out a bit smaller than intended, as when I printed on A4 the 3"x3" guide square was 2.75"x2.75". I think the size is fine for the bag though, and I couldn't seem to get my printer settings to print any bigger anyhow. I chose white 'pleather' for the clutch as it is supposed to be a leather make. I had a bit of trouble finding material that I liked and had given up on the pleather and thought I'd try making it up in a thick upholstery fabric instead, and found a fun metallic painted boucle that I thought would work from Simply Fabrics in Brixton. Although I did ending up finding some decent pleather in their sister shop after all. My first try in pleather was very quick and easy, but it was almost too easy- I didn't trust the glue and the interior of the pleather made it look a bit too cheap for my taste. |
It doesn't look too bad from the picture, but the it just wasn't quite right.
So I made it up again in the boucle, results below (with Matthew MacFadyen pulling a funny face in Ripper Street, and my trusty Toyota).
I made a buttonhole on the machine where the pattern has the clasp marking- I found I only needed one in the top flap, but the pattern has one underneath as well which I guess is useful if you're using a button or press stud instead. I'm not very experienced with machine buttonholing so it came out a little messy (I think the tension needs sorting on my machine too). I zig-zagged all the edges to stop them fraying and handstitched the flaps for the construction. It's lovely (and pretty festive I think) but it's not quite stiff enough really to be a clutch bag- it just flops over when held in the hand.
So I had the ingenious idea of using both fabrics together. For the Secret Santa clutch I used white pleather for the outside and the blue boucle on the inside. I think it's quite a '60s colour and styling combo. Here's the finished result.
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