Tutorial: Making a Laminated Wallet

As mentioned earlier this week, I recently got to try out an all-new collection of Timeless Treasures laminated cotton and really love just how much you can do with this stuff.  An added bonus is that unlike regular cotton, it comes 56" wide, so you get a lot more fabric per yd.  After making several, fairly large projects I had tons of scraps.  Today's project used those scraps to make a handy Girl-On-The-Go Wallet.  With room for all your cards and cash:

The texture of the laminated cotton keeps everything in place and I made this design so everything can be seen at once.   I usually have a grabby baby on one arm while in the checkout, so easy access is critical.  My old wallet was a small zip-up and meant pulling everything out to find the right card.  Did I mention that it was boring brown and out of laziness, had been used since high school? Yeah, I was that stylin'.

You'll Need:
Laminated cotton
Double fold bias tape
Usual sewing notions (marking pen, pins, ruler, scissors/rotary cutter, tissue paper, thread)

First cut your main pieces.  You'll need (3) 8.5 in 2 in strips, (1) 8.5in x 11in piece for the main wallet and (1) 8.5in x 8in piece for the bill pocket:

Take your strips and encase in bias tape along on side and stitch on:

Take your larger rectangular piece and mark it across the middle, parallel with your shorter sides.  Now line up your first strip, bias taped side upward about 1" down from the line you just drew, so both pieces have right sides facing out.  Cover with a piece of tissue paper and pin close to raw side edges & stitch on 1/4" from the raw bottom of the strip:

Repeat this step with the other two strips, placing each 1in down from the previous strip, so that they will  look like this when done:

Mark a line down the middle of these strips and stitch with tissue so there are 6 card pockets.

Take this piece and fold in half wrong sides facing.  Do the same with the smaller rectangular piece and line up raw edges of both pieces together like this:

Now take your bias tape and starting on one side, encase the entire perimeter of the rectangle.  Make sure you have an extra inch to fold inward to nicely finish off when the edges meet (I was using what I had on hand, which was just a bit shorter and made that part look a bit sloppier than I'd have liked):

Miter corners as shown:

And behold, your stylish, inexpensive & practical wallet:

And now my wallet carrying has made the leap from 1990's to 2010.  Finally!

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