Dancing with a Curvy Clutch

Amy Friendbags, Basic Grey, Michelle Patterns, Sizzix14 Comments

This is another one of Michelle Webster’s patterns, the Curvy Clutch. It is sewn up in Little Black Dress by BasicGrey for their quilt market booth. I hadn’t used this pattern before and I liked it very much (though it definitely looks better stuffed full of essentials or tissue paper than it does when empty!). I sewed the flap on backwards and had to use my seam ripper but that was completely my error, not due to the pattern!  I was watching for the school bus at the time and was distracted.
 

The clutch has a pocket inside and an optional wristlet strap on the side. I had to include it because I like wristlets and I thought it might be cute if they wanted to hang it in the booth. You can find Michelle’s patterns here.

I also created this “Dance” piece for Basic Grey using their monogram chipboard letters. The chipboard is plain white so I started out by covering the fronts with fabric from the Little Black Dress line using spray adhesive. Then I carefully folded the fabric around to the back and secured using tacky glue. This involved a bit of clipping when it came to the insides of the letters. 

I filled in the center of each letter with different contrasting fabrics. Some of the inner letters are pieced and I had fun in a couple of them using a loopy stitch I just discovered on my machine.  You can see it best in the “N.”  I backed all the inner letter with fusible interfacing so that they were sturdy and then I glued them to the back of the chipboard with tacky glue.

I embellished the outer boards using lace, embroidery floss, buttons and flowers. To create the stitches, I punctured the chipboard with an awl.

The flowers were made with my Sizzix die called Flowers Layer #9. It was my first time using it and I love it! I think some more hair accessories may be in order.  Or perhaps embellished bags?  Oh the possibilities…