Sewing Clutches for the Ladies

As I said on Monday, I have a bunch of projects that I haven't shared with the hive yet and I am trying to get them all up before the wedding. This project was suppose to be makeup bags for my ladies, but I wanted to spice it up. After some trial and error on my part, it turned into this:

Clutches for my Ladies!!!

Here's my best shot at a sewing tutorial. I've never written up a sewing project like this before, so I am going to try my very best to be specific, but I just really sew by trial and error and I don't know all the technical terms for things.

What you need. A. Fabric- you want something a bit heftier on the outside, and something somewhat durable on the inside. I bought the outside fabric at Joann's and just used some leftover fabric that I had from previous makeup bag projects on the inside (hello, recycling!!). B. Iron on- Heavy Weight Interlining (stabilizer). I found out the hard way how important this stuff is, without it your purse will feel thin. 3. Magnet buttons.

Here's a step by step:

Step 1: Cutting rectangles. Cut both the outer and inner fabrics into approximately 11 inch by 18 inch rectangles. Put the two fabrics facing each other and sew the two long sides and one of the short sides. I used about a 1/4 inch seem.

Step 2: Cut the Interlining. Iron on the Heavy Weight Interlining. I wanted some extra heft so I did a layer of interlining on both sides.

Step 3: Starting at the short edge that is sewn, measure about 1/3 of the way down the long edge- mark it. Along the short edge, measure about 2 to 2.5 inches in. And create a triangle. Sew that line. This is important- it allows for the seam for sewing the sides of the purse- otherwise, the flap folds funny. (I don't know a better way to describe it).


Step 4: I can give you more. Just kidding.*

Step 4: Turn your purse inside out and iron. It should look like this:


Step 5: The magnet button thingy. This is easy. First, fold the purse in equal thirds. Both sides of the magnet have two prongs. Measure approximately 1.5 to 2 inches from the top of the flap, mark the center and cut two holes into the liner fabric only, and put the magnet in place.

Attach the other side, mark the spot where the prongs hit the fabric. Make two holes in the outside of the fabric and fold prongs over.

Did that make sense? Make sure that you also measure so you are in the middle of the clutch.

Step 6: Sew the final side short side of the purse. Do this by turning the edges in and iron them flat before sewing.

Step 7: Turn the bottom part inside out and sew the two sides.


And that's it.

Here are the insides, as you can tell they are all a bit different:

I loved them, but I thought something was missing. Thanks to a post by Miss Powder Puff, I went somewhere I never go: Forever 21!!! She mentioned some great flower hair accessories there, so I went and snatched up a bunch, cut off the hair elastic, glue gunned them to a safety pin and added them to the clutches.


What do you think? I have to admit that it took me at least three or four tries to figure out how to make these successfully. Anyone else sew up a project via trial and error?

*extra credit if you know the song?