Make This:

Sequin Clutch – Part 1

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Fashion’s Night Out comes but once a year, and it seemed fitting that I should only be seen while carrying something completely covered in sequins. Come on – this isn’t just shopping, this is shopping with DJs.

 

Silliness aside, this really is a classic evening out bag that I’ve made by borrowing some ideas about assembly from working with fur. It really is similar in that you want to create a very sturdy project without upsetting the perfect exterior of the material you’re working with. It’s large enough for essentials but small enough to look like you live an effortless existence where you’re so pulled together that your entire life fits in a tiny evening bag.

Supplies and Equipment:
– pre-strung sequins – this clutch used about 40 yards
– 1/2 yard cotton fabric – this is plain unbleached muslin, you may want to match your sequin color
– 1/2 yard heavy fusible interfacing
– sewing thread – to match the sequins and/or fabric
– sewing needle
– 7 inch zipper
– 2 3/4 inch D rings (optional, so you can add a strap later if you’d like)
– sewing pins, scissors, iron, pencil, general sewing basics
– pattern – DOWNLOAD IT HERE -> Page 1 | Page 2 (use ‘howdidyoumakethis.com’ as a match mark)

Trace the pattern (not the side panels) onto the cotton fabric. The ‘bullseye’ is a series of guidelines for sewing the sequins down.

 

Cut the pattern pieces from fusible interfacing.

Fuse the interfacing aligned with the lines you traced on earlier, then cut around loosely (leave another 1/2 to 1 inch of margin.)

 

Fuse the side panels onto the fabric and cut loosely around those – leave at least 1 inch of margin. Set those aside for now.

Start sewing the sequins from the center of the bullseye. Our technique post on Applying Pre-Strung Sequins covers the method in great detail. Go read it if you haven’t already.

 

Be sure to save any sequins you pull off of the strand – you’ll need them later!

Work in a spiral from the center out, overlapping the sequins as much as possible. Try to keep the circle centered on the bullseye.

Eventually it will look like this. Keep going until the sewing line is right up to the edge of the flap so the sequins will hang over the edge just a little. Be sure to stop before you sew into the seam allowance.

On the last row of the bullseye stitch sequins down until you reach a side seam allowance. Don’t stitch over the line for the seam allowance – keep all of your stitches on the outside of the bag and none in the seam.

Turn and stitch back to the other side – keep zig-zaging back and forth until you reach the end of the panel. You’ll probably have to end your sequin row and then add a few more strands to fill the corners at the end of the panel.

 

All through this section be sure that you don’t stitch into the seam allowance. Gaps at the edge are okay, we can fix those later.

Finish your tails toward into the seam allowance when you end your strand. It’s okay to sew into the seam allowance here.

Fold the fabric back along the line between the face and the seam allowance. Remember the loose sequins you’ve been saving? Stitch those in anywhere that you can see the backing fabric.

It should look similar to this.

Trim down to the seam allowance.

This method is lifted from how you work with furs. Fold the seam allowance back. Stitch it down by catching a bit of the sequin backing fabric then going through the seam allowance. Be sure not to stitch over sequins, just catch the backing. Stitch sides and flap edge down all the way around, but don’t stitch down the other edge (where the zipper will be sewn in.)

Sew sequins onto and finish the edges of the side panels. On the sides you want the sequins to run up to the edge or hang off a tiny amount – but much less than they did on the main part of the bag. Leave the top edge unfinished on these, too. Make the side panels as identical in height as possible. End your sequin thread tails to the side, not the top, so they don’t show when you sew in the D-ring.

Slide on a D-Ring and sew the seam allowance over it very securely.

The finished side panels will look like this.

 

Tune in tomorrow Click here for the gripping conclusion: