Sunday, January 24, 2016

Upcycled Denim Wallet/Clutch

Another pair of jeans and a bandanna from my next door neighbor. This time I took pics as I went...



This pair of jeans had a lot of bling on the back pockets (obviously these did not belong to me!). Once again, I kind of made this up as I went, but that was what made this one fun!

Materials

One ass of jeans
One part of leg of jeans
One bandanna
One 9" zipper
Few inches of elastic cord

This project doesn't really call for specific measurements because jeans will vary in size, so I'll provide the measurements I used but you can adjust as needed if you do this yourself based on how your jeans want to fold. The ridiculous amount of bling on this pocket made it not want to fold and I didn't dare sew through all that because I knew it would only result in broken needles.

Finished dimensions: 7.5" x 4.75"

Cut the Exterior

This involves "fussy cutting" to really figure out how you want the final product to show. I found the right fold and basically cut a piece from the ass of jeans that was about 10" square. 

Assemble Card Pocket

Using the bandanna, I cut 4 pieces that were 8" x 2.5"

I took each piece and folded the top over 1/4" to create a hem and stitched across the top.

From the leg of the jeans, I cut a couple rectangles about 10" x 4.5".

Using one of the leg rectangles, I made that the "back" of my card pocket. Starting 1" from the top of the denim rectangle, I placed the first piece of bandanna over and stitched it to the denim at about 1/2" from the bottom (I used a rewards card to determine where to sew to create the bottom of the pocket). 

I placed the next bandanna piece 1/2" from the top hem of the first piece and again stitched across 1/2" from the bottom to secure it to the denim. Did the same for the remaining 2 pieces. 

I folded the assembly in half to find the midpoint and then stitched up starting from the bottom to divide the card pockets at the center. I stopped at the top of the bandanna hem and pulled the last stitch through to the back and knotted it there so that I didn't have hanging threads. 


I measured 3.5" from the middle stitch and stitched up each side to secure the pockets to the denim and to create the card pockets. 

At this point I decided that I would create a little bias tape out of the bandanna to hide the raw edge and create a pocket behind the cards. For this, I cut a piece of bandanna at 8" x 2". 

I folded the bandanna to create a 1/2" bias tape. Sandwiched the denim of the card pocket into the bandanna tape and stitched 2 rows to secure.



Zipper Top

I thought a zip along the top would look nice, so I placed a 9" zipper face down on the exterior side (basically the bottom - opposite side of where the jeans pocket opens).


Stitched that in place using a zipper foot. I did a couple rows of stitches to secure it.

With the assembly facing right side down, pull the zipper tape away to attach the inside piece. I used the other "leg rectangle" and placed it right side up on the table, and laid the assembly on top, right side down.

Note - since this was going to create the "seam" across the top, I needed to insert the elastic I was using to close the clutch at this point. I looped the elastic into a knot (you can see the tails sticking out in the photo below) and stuck that loop in (tails out) between the zipper and the leg rectangle. I made sure to try it out and make sure that the elastic was the right length to securely loop around the button on the back pocket. I stitched over it a few times to make sure it held in place when I sewed the zipper.


Next, I turned it over and topstitched along both sides of the zip to make sure it laid nice and flat. I also made sure to catch the seam in this stitch because I was not going to line this pocket.


Next, I determined that I needed to attach another piece of bandanna to "line" the inside that would go behind the card pocket. So, I just took my bandanna and stitched to the leg rectangle (right sides together).

I didn't want to measure here so I just flipped the assembly over at the zipper (right sides together) and cut the bandanna to match the exterior fabric edges. Super lazy but whatever.



Attach Card Pocket to Lining

Lay the card pocket assembly on top of the bandanna liner and match everything up and pin or clip in place. Stitch up each side at 1/4" to attach the card pocket to the liner. 

Note - in the photo below you can see that everything is wider than the card pocket at this point. That was intentional because I didn't know what I'd wind up doing, so all that excess will get trimmed down later! I made sure that everything was centered up with the button on the jeans pocket throughout the process.


Close the Seams

I folded this bad boy right sides together and clipped everything together. Using the stitch line from the card assembly being attached to the liner, I drew lines to "complete" the seams and stitched over those, leaving a few inch gap on the right side of the denim rectangle in the photo below for turning.


I stitched an extra line just outside of the original to secure it. I also had issues with the seam at the bottom (where bandanna meets top of outer pocket) because the bling and rivets were just in the way. I wound up having to hand stitch some of it because I saw that it wasn't totally closed.

After I was happy I had it right, I cut down the excess along each side and clipped the corners.


Turned that sucker out and worked out the corners as best I could.

Last step was stitching the gap closed from turning. I couldn't topstitch around the whole thing because of the bling on the pocket, so I just stitched up the side. And because I'm a slave to symmetry, I ran a line of stitching up the other side to match. 


On this one, the zipper technically opens the entire thing as a bag because I didn't create a self-contained pocket. I don't know how I feel about that, but we'll see what Dee says, since it's for her!