Leather and Linen Clutch

Oversized clutch purses are very popular of late, but if you want one with some nice materials or even a little bit of embellishment, you have to fork over some serious cash. Given how simple these purses are to make, we might as well make our own for a fraction of the price, and with way cooler decorations. With a little embroidery, chic matching liner and a splash of leather, this clutch will have you styling with the best in just an afternoon.

The size of your clutch is likely most dependent on the size of your zipper. The trend with these kinds of purses is to make them large and in charge, so you can fit lots of stuff inside.

Start by laying out your zipper on your fabric, and marking out how large your clutch is going to be.

Next, lay your leather scrap across the bottom, to see how that will fit. It’s up to you if you want an even or a raw edge; I left the irregular edge the leather started with.

When you cut your fabric, keep in mind where you’re going to add your embroidery. I’m adding mine off to the side, so I cut a little extra on that side so I’d have room to hoop.

Now, we’re going to want to attach our leather before we start stitching. I’m keeping the open edge on mine (instead of sewing and turning a seam) so I just carefully pinned it in place, and sewed as close as I could to the leather edge.

Getting a neat, close seam is vital if you’re going to try and embroider on top of it. You want only a tiny bit of the leather on the raw edge of the seam, so it doesn’t get caught while your machine is embroidering.

Once my leather was in place, I used a printed template to mark out where I wanted my ship design to go.

Hoop up your design backed with cutaway stabilizer. Light, open designs like these can stitch right onto leather, especially when we have fabric behind the leather as extra backing. You would not, however, want to try this with dense designs or designs with satin stitch areas.

Here’s my design all stitched out. You can see I trimmed away the excess at the edges and now have two pieces of my clutch fabric cut out and ready.

If you have enough leather, you can also add a matching strip to your backing piece, so the entire bottom of your clutch is leather.

You’ll also want to cut out two pieces of your lining fabric the same size as your cover.

Now... the zipper! Making a lined, zippered bag is easy if you just follow a few simple steps.

We’re going to start with our lining. Place your zipper with the zip head facing down. Line up one edge of your lining along the edge of your zipper, and pin it in place. Use a zipper foot to sew a seam down that side.

Once you have one side done, repeat with your other piece of liner. When you’re done, fold both pieces open. Your liner should now look like this, with the back of the zipper facing up, and your lining on either side.

Now flip this whole piece over, so the zipper is facing up. We’re going to repeat this process with the outside of our clutch purse. Take the piece you just embroidered, and line the top (without the leather) along one side of the zipper. Pin in place and sew a seam down the side.

Repeat this on the other side. With your zipper facing up, your clutch should now look like this, with the clutch fabric on top, and the lining fabric underneath, facing down.

To secure the outside fabric more neatly, press the fold down near the zipper and pin it in place. Then, sew a seam right next to the zipper. This will hide a little bit of our zipper and make sure everything is snug.

Here’s how everything looks at this point. We’re ready to turn it into a clutch! But wait... before you go on to this next step, unzip your zipper at least halfway. You’ll be glad you did.

You’re now going to fold your fabric in half the other way. The cover pieces should be folded in, right sides together, and the lining should be as well, right sides facing together.

Now we’re going to sew a seam around the whole thing. Careful though! You’re going to want to leave a gap in the bottom of your lining, where you can pull the whole purse right sides out.

When you’re sewing your seam around, take extra care when you go by your zipper edges. You want to get as close to the zipper ends as possible, but you don’t want your needle to hit it, especially if you’re using a metal zipper like mine.

Once everything is stitched, start pulling your clutch right side out again through the hole in your lining. You’ll be glad now your zipper is partly undone, so you can get to the cover side.

Once everything is pulled right side out again, hand stitch the hole in your lining closed.

Stuff your lining back inside your purse and push out all the edges. Finally, zip it all up!

Your chic new leather accent clutch is ready in a jiffy, for a fraction of the price of a store bought one.

Leather accents, beautiful stitched designs, and even a matching lining all make this piece come together as a runway ready accessory. You can mix and match leather with all kinds of fabrics and stitch right over it for an avant-garde kind of look.

Your new clutch purse is ready to grab at a moments notice, large enough to fit all your girly goods, and chic enough for any night out.

Sail the seas in style with your rustic and modern clutch. The best part of the night will be when someone asks you where you bought it!