DIY – Chanel inspired clutch

It is finally time to continue with our ‘Learning from the masters’ projects – CHANEL. After our in-depth study into the life of Coco Chanel and mastering the ‘quilt-like-Chanel’ technique, it is time to do a little DIY with this amazing quilted piece of leather! Today we will make this quilted Chanel inspired clutch. Lot’s to do, so shall we start?

What do you need?

• Piece of quilted leather
• Twist lock
• Mallet
• Leather glue
• Leather needles
• Black thread
• Pricking irons

Step 1: add a lining

Behind those puffy squares hides a less pretty layer of foam and the back part of the lock. To make this clutch Chanel-look worthy, we need to add an inner layer of suede/leather/fabric first. I have chosen to do a blind and folded edge. This means, leave 1.5 cm as a border, and glue the lining on the bottom 0.5 cm. Fold the outer 0.5 over the middle 0.5 cm and fold the ‘folded edge’ one more time over the lining edge. Stitch them together in the middle. The previous steps can be seen in the photos beneath.

Step 2: Glue and Roll

The following step is to glue the rest of the lining onto the quilted piece of leather. Especially the edges are important. To create a sharp looking border you can apply pressure by rolling something like the spool over and over until the border triangles are set.

Step 3: fold and prick

To create the ‘bag’ part you will need to fold the piece in 3, with a slightly smaller ‘flap’ part. The next steps will be done ‘inside out’. All you see is the lining while the pretty puffy squares are inside the bag for now. To create a blind edge you also will be doing the stitching on the ‘wrong’ side. A few notes, to keep in mind. You want to line up all the squares so it will look like an infinite piece of quilted leather. The second thing to assure this is to stitch as closely as you can on the triangles. Although the puffy foam will make this more difficult. Draw a line with a sharp object to see where you will have to prick the stitching holes. Stitch them tightly and turn the bag inside out again! The beginning of our bag can be seen… so exciting!

Step 4: Folded flap

The last and final step is to attach the upper piece of the lock and to make a folded flap edge.  As shown in the image below you put some glue on both sides of the leather. Fold it once and line up the lining and the outer layer. Glue these together and stitch them with a stitching marge of 3 to 5 mm.

Unbelievable, done already? Well, lucky us, now we can show this DIY Chanel inspired clutch to everyone. It’s just perfect to store your phone and some cash while partying or going out for a drink, don’t you think? Optionally you could add a golden chain to make it even more like Chanel.