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| Could have birthed a baby in the time it took me to do this...! |
I posted about this wallet project last summer and did not think for a second that it would take me over eight months to finish! We all have works in progress that get attention on a rotating basis, but this project was just "out of sight, out of mind" for me.
Truth be told, I had lost all enthusiasm for it. Has that ever happened to you?
If it weren't for my cousin coming up to visit next weekend, the wallet likely still wouldn't be done. So I thank my lucky stars that things came together finally and this one is now officially off my plate.
Actually, about six weeks ago, I felt a twinge of guilt about this and started the process of redoing it. I knew roughly what needed to be done, but I wasn't about to start all over again, so I settled down with my stitch ripper and dismantled the wallet. The guts of it — what I called the interior assembly — could be reused; the bill pocket lining and exterior would have to be remade from scratch.
Problem One
It's been so long that I almost can't remember, but there were three things that needed to be fixed when I completed the test wallet last August. The curvature and thickness of the sides once the wallet was loaded up with cards — particularly around the middle — was the first issue.My solution for that was to widen the wallet by laying down a strip of fabric on the outside edges of the card slots, so that the actual outside seams wouldn't have any of the card slot folds on it.
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| Adding fabric to the two outside edges fixes the problem of bulky card slots affecting the side seams... |
As you can see in the above picture, this means that everything that used to be 8-1/2" wide was now 10" wide. (And that was just arbitrary; I could have used narrower strips of fabric.) If you're going to do this, whatever you end up with, just make sure the exterior back piece and the bill pocket lining pieces are all the same width.
And of course, before I went any further, I checked that the card slots were actually able to accommodate cards. The fit has to be snug; i.e., not too loose and definitely not too small.
Problem Two
The second problem was an area of thinness under the last card slot. Not much I can do about that without an overhaul of the whole interior — which I wasn't prepared to do — so I just fused on a double layer of interfacing underneath. |
| Add some strips of interfacing underneath the final card slot (on both sides) to add some thickness... |
Speaking of interfacing, I had said last time that the back exterior piece should be interfaced but then didn't do so. I did it this time, after confirming that the size is correct (it must be the same as the interior assembly).
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| Interface the back exterior piece... |
Problem Three
Next, I cut two new pieces of fabric for the bill pocket lining to address the third problem: because the lining was not as deep as the actual wallet, it resulted in yet another issue of uneven thickness at the bottom. I added an inch to the height of the pocket lining pieces, i.e., to 5-1/2" from the original 4-1/2".My plan was to finish off the pocket only to a sufficient depth to hold paper money, but the fabric would still extend almost all the way down to the bottom of the wallet.
Here are my pocket linings: one attached to the interior assembly and one to the exterior.
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| Attach a bill pocket lining piece to each of the other pieces... |
Now it's time to add the exterior zippered coin pocket.
and continue for only $4.95 a month!
Last time I didn't pay attention to how the pieces were oriented and had to unpick and resew. Here is the correct set up to add the exterior zippered pocket (so that it doesn't end up under the tab).
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| Make sure bill pocket lining is to your right... |
This next picture shows how I handled the bill pocket lining.
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| Angle the side seams and establish the bottom of the pocket much higher than the actual fabric remaining... |
I angled the seam on both sides (and then cut off the excess) so that there would be less bulk inside once turned. Then I sewed the bottom of the pocket quite a ways up from the bottom edge of the fabric. (Leave a gap, of course, to turn right side out.)
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| Here is the back side of the wallet, showing the zippered coin pocket. |
Once turned right side out, it was a few minutes of pressing with a hot iron before going around and adding some topstitching.
Speaking of topstitching, I did more of it this time because it was now possible to sew along the side edges.
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| Finished! Finally! |
Filled up with cards and no longer bulging out at the sides... of course, the whole wallet is now wider, but I don't think I could have fixed it any other way.
If you're interested in trying this wallet out for yourself (and no, I have no plans to develop this further into a pattern for sale), you should now be able to reference this post and the previous one for the complete specs.
Hope my cousin appreciates what I went through to complete this!
P.S. Those of you who are subscribers to this blog via Feedburner may have noticed that the entire post was not emailed out this time. I've had issues with some posts being content heavy and not being sent out at all, so I believe this is a worthwhile compromise. If you've read this far to get this explanation, many thanks!
You could have birthed a baby in the time it took you to make this wallet, LOL!!!! Well I know you are glad you got it finished Rochelle. It looks great too. Did you tell your cousin your comment about birthing the baby? I'm sure she laughed a lot about that.
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