Cute Clutches Continued

I was so excited after the first two clutches I made, that I made two more this last week. Cutting pieces here and there and finally buying some zippers so that I could assemble them. I made these two entirely out of fabric scraps that I had laying around...yes literally laying under and around my sewing table.

Fun! The owl clutch surely shows off my awful stitching. Both of my machines are in dyer need of some TLC...I promise I can sew a straight line. Going to see if my Pa can give my machines a tune up this weekend.

Cute Clutches!

When I go to Target or any other department store, I often browse past the clutches and wallets to check for sales! I love clutches, but rarely buy them because they are usually over priced and made of cheap materials. I found this fantastic tutorial on how to make a clutch so today jumped right in and made two. I have never really sewn in zippers before, so I was so EXCITED for what I did today.

The full zipper clutch tutorial is available from Skip To My Lou.

Here are some photos that I took along the way.

The front of the floral clutch. 

The inside lining with credit card holder slots.

 The zipper end tabs. 

Close ups of the zipper end tabs. 

Pinning the outside and liner pieces to the zipper.  

One side sewed to the zipper, ready for the next. 

 Pinning the outside and liner pieces to the zipper. Because of the pleats, I pinned very frequently. 

You must leave a gap when sewing up the liner piece. The first clutch I made, I left the gap in the side of the liner. This make it extremely hard to sew once I had the clutch right side out. This time, I put the hole in the bottom of the liner to make it easier to sew once finished. 

Here are the finished products, each one has place for credit cards/ids and a divider pocket for a checkbook or receipts.

Keeping Warm on the Mountain

One of my most favorite things to do this winter and any other winter is snowboard. Some days on the mountain are extremely cold so I created a face mask that looks like a bandanna but much warmer. I have changed them up a little since I first started making them and here is a quick tutorial on how I make them now.

Cut your main fabric like the photo below. If you fold it in half, the dimensions are approximately 12" across the top (24" total width), 4" along the sides, and 14" down the centerline toward the point. Reduce the length and width a few inches for a kids sized face mask.

I wanted to use up some fabric I had so I put two pieces together, otherwise there is not a seam in the point that you see in the photo.

Cut a piece of fleece the same size.

Lay out two strips of velcro so that you can see exactly where you need to sew them. Sew on the velcro pieces keeping in mind that you need about 1/4" on each edge for your hem.  

Sew on your velcro to the front of each piece. Then take your two pieces and place them front to front and sew 1/4" around each edge, leaving about 2-3" to turn the piece inside out. 

Once the piece is turned right side out and you have sewed up the hole, I do some decorative stitching as shown below. 

Now it's complete and ready to wear on those chilly days snowboarding, skiing, biking, or anything else!