Hand Embroidered Clutch

Long time no see! Its been a long time since i have posted anything on here, mainly because student life did not allow me to indulge in DIYing as much as i would like.

But I am back home for the summer and was inspired to do two thing that i enjoy tremendously - embroidery and sewing- albeit i am not great at either, but i enjoy the process and that is all that matters, right?

So lets get started!

• Some heavy duty cloth for the front, I used denim because it could take the weight of all the beads i was about to sew on there, but you could also use canvas
• Some lining material, i used a stripy cotton cloth
• Lots and lots of tiny beads (I dont know what they are called, but i just bought a ton of necklaces for very cheap and cut them open)
• A zipper
• General sewing supplies

Cut the following piece with the given measurements (I am very sorry about the unprofessional image). With these measurements, my final clutch came out to me 8 inches in length and 6 inches in length.

If you want to change the measurements, keep in mind that the cloth will shrink significantly post embroidery so add an extra half en inch to the your desired final measurement (and dont forget about seam allowance.)

I searched long and wide on pinterest to find this interesting bee design that i really liked, so i sketched it out on some paper. You can obviously print this out.

I then cut it out and traced it out on my cloth using a regular pencil.

The pencil marks were well visible in real life but they dont really show up on camera.

Start by bring out your needle from on corner of the side of the hexagon and pull the thread all the way through. Then thread enough beads so that they are the length of the side and poke your needle through the other corner.

Now, to secure the beads, 'anchor' them to the fabric by poking your needle right beside the string of beads, and poking it to the other side (this is much clearer in the image). Add about two anchors to each string of beads to secure them firmly.

PS. try not too add more beads than the length of the side as this will cause the beads to warp and look less neat.

For the head and the body i used large beads with a flat base and two holes at the sides.

I first cut off the head from my sketch and marked the proper placement position. I then poked my needle through one side of the made marking and strung my bead through, then i took my needle back down staying very close to the side of the bead. Then i went through the other hole the same way. One my thread was in the back of the fabric, I tied a knot and proceeded to attach another bead.

I did the same for the 'upper body' of the bee but with a larger bead.

The next step involves bordering the 'upper body' bead in some colorful smaller beads to make it pop more.

To do this i poked my needle close to the side of the bead, and strung on enough beads to go around the bead. I then poked the needle to the other side very close to from where i did before. I then 'anchored' the string several places to secure it.

In a similar way i added a few more details to the bee, all with different colured beads.

To add the 'lower body' i used the same technique that i used for the upper body, but since this time there was no bead to guide it i had to eyeball the amount of beads I'll need and then filled it up with more beads.

I similarly added wings to complete the bee.

Place the two smaller pieces on each of the zip and sew along the red line as shown. Then fold the cloth over and topstitch it.

I did this because the zipper did not have endings, you can totally skip this step if yours do.

Place the zipper and one side of the front right sides together and sew along the red line. Do the same thing to the other side and then top stitch. Top stitching is important else your zipper might pull the fabric making it difficult to open and close.

In a similar fashion place the lining as shown and attach it to the zipper. Dont forget to top stitch it.

Now all you have to do is close the front and lining pieces. For the lining leave a little gap You'll need it to turn the clutch over. LEAVE THE ZIPPER OPEN, else it would be impossible to turn it over.

Once you have turned the clutch over, hand stitch the remaining lining down and you are done!

PS. I dont have proper photos for this step and stitching this was a total mayhem. Something went wrong with my sewing machine and the needle kept snapping, I went through 5 needles in an hour. So forgive me for that.

I LOOOVE how this turned out! This just might be the favourite thing i have ever made.

The pop of color over black denim is just bomb! Can't wait to flaunt this around town!