The Gathered Clutch Tutorial by Anna
First I dilly dallied choosing fabric, then I forgot where I kept my rotary cutter, and then the zipper decided to play hide and seek……
As I working on this clutch,
- I realized that I only get to work under pressure.Otherwise , I ‘d never get things done!
- I was more confident with the machine. I feel like its my friend now 🙂
- my stitches weren’t that wonky this time and I took time to change the threads to suit the fabric colour
- I did not have to use the seam ripper at all. Well, I did use it in the end, I will tell you about it in a minute.
- I wasn’t feeling nervous at all till I reached the zipper part.
It was after that I couldn’t understand what the pattern said. More because I had this mental block about zippers being hard and so on.In fact, I just stopped stitching when the part to stitch on the zipper came on and walked away. checked out few you tube tutes, and could not make sense of them either.
Then I found a pattern had instructions that was much easier to understand. I stitched it all around, and realized that I had stitched with the zipper closed. So out came the seam ripper.
Lesson learnt :When stitching the lining and the outer fabric together, the zipper has to be kept open ,otherwise you cannot turn the right side out!
Tid Bits:
- I lined both the front and the back with a soft interfacing that they call Vaslin here. I had no clue how to use it as well, it did not come with any sort of instruction. So I just placed the shiny part over the fabric and pressed it with a hot iron.That was all that needed to be done
- I had no clue how to stitch the gathering stitch either,for that I decided to stitch with sewing machine set to the longest stitch possible. Then I tried to pull the lose stitches for the creating the gathers.worked perfectly.Although I did yank it a little hard and the thread broke!
- While gathering, I think, I overdid it a little ,but it eventually worked out as you can see.
- Finally. stitching the zipper was not all that I had made it out to be in my head 😀 For my first time, I think it turned out rather well, even if I say so myself.
- This is the first project, that makes it to the blog without my mom first seeing it .She is flying across continents,rt now to visit my brother.And I miss her already.
Ok now,more of my first ever clutch with zipper project.
Front
Back
Isn’t the lining cute? I fell in love with this fabric , when i first saw and got it.A year back or so,as I was working on another project, M who was eager to help me along, spilled ink all over it and made it totally useless.This little patch was all that was left of it. The very next day, we ran back to the shop from where we got it, to get some more.Unfortunately, it was already sold out. So I had been saving that little bit for something special .
I am so glad it was enough for this clutch and some part of a favourite fabric gets to stay on with me.
the dividers and the card holders :))
Am I glad at how much I have learnt with this project!
