HOW TO MAKE: Something to keep your pennies in

 

I made a little triangular coin purse today, after seeing a tutorial on YouTube.  My version's slightly different to the original, but only slightly.  If you'd like to know how to make a purse then view the video, found via this link.  But I'll also run you through how I made mine.  

I drew a rectangle of calico, 17cm x 16cm.  Then turned it into an L shape, as per the measurements below, shown by my highly technical super-de-luxe artist's quality diagram.  

Bet you're impressed, aren't you?  Anyway, moving on ... 

I chose a plain cotton fabric for the purse's inside and a patterned one for the outside.  I placed those fabrics right sides together, then my calico went on top.  I pinned around the edges of the calico, using red pins to indicated where I'd leave a gap of about 5cm or so.   (Basically I'm using the calico as a kind of interfacing.  Otherwise the thin cotton outer and inner fabrics would be too floppy to give the coin purse its shape.)

Using a standard seam allowance, I machine sewed around the calico, though you could hand sew if preferred.  After sewing, it was a case of trimming the excess fabric away and turning the purse right sides out.  Then a few stitches to close up the gap.  I did lines of running stitch across the entire thing.  Don't worry about lines going wonky, it really doesn't matter.  Once completed, you'll have something looking similar to this.  

And here's the other side.  

Fold your L shape so it resembles this.  

Over-stitch all along where those clips are.  

This (photo above) is the same view once the over-stitching's done and the clips removed.  Now, you're going to over-stitch two more seams.  The yellow pins in the picture below are where you're stitching.  The plastic clips show where you're leaving 1cm at the top right corner unstitched, and 1cm at the bottom left corner unstitched.  (If that's not clear, go back to the YouTube video as it's easier to see, or to pause and rewind the video if confused.)  

Your purse fastening needs to be a narrow cord and a bead with a large hole.  The video suggests 60cm in length for the cord, but I reckon it'd be more practical to use a shorter one.  A long cord would, if the purse was in the bottom of your bag, get tangled with other things, making it more difficult to retrieve.  Anyhow, all I could find was this gold coloured cord, kept from a gift wrapping, and a chunky blue bead.  You thread the bead on to the centre of the cord and knot it in place.

Then push both cord ends down through the 1cm gap at the top of your purse, as shown below. 

Those cord ends now go up through the 1cm gap at the base of your purse.  

All that's left is to tie a knot in the two cord ends and your purse is finished.  Ingenious, isn't it?  I reckon these would be great for a craft sale as they're quick to make and quirky enough to catch a buyer's eye.  Maybe a larger version could be made of Easter themed material and mini chocolate eggs hidden inside, or Christmas material and a wee gift popped in there.  They could be embellished with seed beads and embroidery.  

I don't know if the design could be scaled up to make a bag rather than a purse, something for sewing projects to be stored in when you're travelling?  

Hope that's proved useful, and please let me know if you try making one of these coin purses, or have other ideas about how they could be adapted.