Make This:

Sequin Clutch – Part 2

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This is the second half of the Sequin Clutch project – including how to sew up the sequin covered pieces and adding a lining that zips closed.

This is Part 2 – click here to read Part 1

To make the lining you can either cut another set of pieces from interfacing based on the patterns, or based on the actual pieces. I went with using the sequined pieces to help make up for the small amounts of warping that are fairly likely to happen when you sew that much stuff onto fabric.

 

Lay the interfacing over the sequined pieces and trace. The best linings are a little smaller than the outer, so tracing a bit (1/16th inch / 1-2mm) inside the lines will improve the finished bag. Do this for the main and side panels.

Fuse them to the fabric with plenty of room for seam allowance (the traced pieces don’t include anything for seam allowance.)

Trim the fabric down to 1/2 inch seam allowances. Press the allowance over the edge of the interfacing. Use as much heat as the interfacing will take around the curves to shrink the fabric a bit and reduce the bulk in the seams.

Mark on the lining pieces exactly where the sequined areas start – make sure to only sew between those marks on the side panels. Sew the lining along the edges of the interfacing with a backstitch (you can use a sewing machine but I like the precision of hand sewing for this. The seams aren’t really that long.)

Lay the zipper, face down, onto the bag flap. Center it, and push it all the way down to the place where the side panels meet the back.

Sew it into place with more backstitch. Do this just inside the edge of the zipper tape.

Switch back to working on the outer again. Line up the end of the sequin areas on the zipper end of the main panel and the side panel. Stitch these pieces together using a backstitch. Try to stitch into the exact line between the face and the seam allowance.

 

Make a long stitch one direction on one side of the seam…

…And a short stitch on the other side going the other direction. Make sure the place where the thread comes out on one side of the seam aligns perfectly vertically with where it goes in on the other side. This will keep your pieces from skewing and warping.

This is the back of the work part way through sewing up the seams. The two things that will make this successful are making sure that you pull the thread up as tightly as you can without causing warping and watching to be sure that your thread doesn’t tangle around the sequins.

When you’ve stitched all the way around both sides it will actually look like a bag.

Slide the lining in and make sure it fits well.

Pull it out, make any final adjustments, and pink the edges if you happen to have pinking shears. Otherwise just clean up any straggly threads before final assembly.

Fold back the long edge of the lining to where it’s sewn on the side panels and pin it in place (make sure the pins can be retrieved from the inside of the bag later, the pin heads shouldn’t be on the side between the lining and the outer.) Tuck it into the outer.

 

Pin around the edge of the flap, being careful not to disrupt the sequins. Use backtstich to join between the edge of the flap lining and the edge of the flap the same way you did with the side panels.

 

Sew the lining to the outer just below the zipper, again using a backstitch and the method where you just catch the fabric under the sequins. This is just to keep the lining and outer together so you don’t need a million tiny stitches along here.

Sew the zipper to the lining – use a backstitch from the folded edge of the lining to a line just a little bit inside the edge of the zipper tape. Be mindful of starting the lining stitching on this side at the same distance from the end of the zipper tape as it is on the other side. You’ll probably need to open the zipper to sew it into place.

All that’s left now is to tuck all of the remaining seam allowance and zipper tape into place and do one more row of backstitch to hold everything in place. Sew through the outer, zipper tape and lining at the ends; and sew through the line between the face and the seam allowance on the outer, and through the zipper tape just above the line you sewed the lining at before.

(My skin seems to react a bit with the finish on the sequins. At first I was incredibly disappointed by this, but after looking at it without any expectation of what the bag is supposed to be I realized I like the effect and I never would have been able to find sequins printed like that!)

 

The D-rings are there so you can clip on a strap if you’re, for example, expecting to partake of a few adult beverages and think you might like to tie your personal belongings to yourself, just in case. They fold into the bag fairly invisibly when they’re not attached to anything.