little black bag

I had a party to go to last Sunday that I needed a little black bag to carry with a fairly fancy dress. I was in a rush so I had looked at a couple department stores in the mall and either they had only hideously ugly bags or tiny black leather clutches that all cost more than $100. I really just wanted a little black fabric clutch and I couldn't find that anywhere. I gave up and decided that I was going to Jo-Ann's. For some reason I thought that Jo-Ann's would have the hardware for the clasp for the clutch. They have all these other purse handles but somehow the little clippy thing for the clutch is not something that is sold at places like that. I also got in my head that I wanted black cotton eyelet fabric. I found really cute, on sale, eyelet fabric in every other color but not black there. It was so busy that I just go frustrated and went to another fabric store, the Cotton Shop. That place of course had the fabric I wanted. It still didn't have the clutch hardware but I had already come up with a solution for that.

I designed the whole bag in my head at my boyfriend's house before I got back to my house where my sewing machine is. I used dowels cut down to the length of the top of the bag to make it sturdy and then make little flaps that fold in so there is room to open it. I saw a tutorial for similar looking clutch that used interfacing to make the top stiff but I didn't have any and had already been to two fabric shops that day. I ended up having to do the top stitching around the opening by hand because the dowels wouldn't fit under my sewing machine foot. I like the way it turned out. It was kind of frustrating but I finished it in the couple of hours that I had before the party.



close up of pleats

lined with blue green broad cloth and has snap closure