When your friend is a maid of honor at a wedding...

My gorgeous friend at the wedding:-)

The last wedding I’ve been to was about three years ago and I think it was probably one of the last one I’ll go to before along time as most of my friends are married now or simply don’t want to which is fine. But other people do get invited to weddings and it was the case for a very good friend of mine (that's her above!): she was actually the maid of honor at her cousin’s wedding.

So a few months during one of our catch ups she started telling me about the details: a July wedding and the colour theme would be...Teal and Gold! Nice choice: even though 90% of my wardrobe is black, I like some colours and teal is one of them. So there we were looking at dresses online and different options but nothing in teal. She went to shops too but was quickly faced to the reality of things by a sales assistant: “teal is not in the trend this year”. OK...that was unfortunate...

In the end she found a dress online and we thought it could be the right choice so she ordered it (if not good, she could just return it anyway). Dress sorted then!

 

Click on image to enlarge

Phase 2 was of course the accessories and that’s when I come into action. She was looking for a clutch bag and of course my brain could not stop my mouth from saying “well, I can try to make that for you if you can’t find one in the right colours?”. When will I learn, huh?  But passed the fear of not succeeding, it is the feeling of doing something special for a friend that takes over. And also the opportunity of trying something new and pushing yourself a bit too :-)

Funny enough, that same friend had offered me a craft shop gift card for my birthday and I'd bought a sewing book with it. My first thought went towards a clutch bag I'd seen in it.

 

The book's name is Couture Urbaine, written by Laurence GROS-DESIRS aka Pimsy fait des trucs, who was in the first season of "Cousu Main" (the French version of The Great British Sewing Bee).

 

Couture Urbaine - cover

Here is the clutch bag I suggested to her and she agreed:

 



Charonne clutch

To make sure that I wouldn't mess it up, I preferred to make a test version first with some left over fabric I've had in my stock for a few years. And it turned out to be a very good idea lol

Done! Oh, snap!

 

That colour combination is not great though lol

Although it was done in a few hours, I'd sewn the handle the wrong way and realised it once finished and ready to close. I'm glad I didn't even bother buying interfacing for that one.

 

The book itself is nice but I found that the explanations could've been a bit clearer sometimes. For this clutch for example, they fit on one page with five pictures:

 

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It took me forever to understand how to sew the lining because to me some details were missing. It's only by looking very closely at the picture that I noticed she'd sewn two sides instead of one. So even though this book is meant to be as clear and easy as possible, if you are a beginner, I think you might struggle a bit. But then, I haven't tried other models yet, but some are on my list for sure!

Anyway, I went to the shop and got some samples in the right colours and got started with a second mock up: it went much better on that occasion!

 

Much better

The black skai fabric I already had from a previous clutch I'd made for a wedding a few years ago, remember?

Loving this fabric

We both agreed it was the right combination out of all the samples I had:

We didn't keep the top one for the handle as it would have made too many textures on the clutch

And here is the final version with the teal skai:

 

I changed the side of the handled as she is right handed

The lining was a cream cotton fabric and I used a gold magnetic button as well as gold thread

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Cotton lining

The handle



The inside of the clutch



The button

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So there you have it! The wedding took place last Saturday and my friend said the clutch had a lot of success: what more can you ask for?! She was happy, I'm happy...all is well :-)

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Pattern: pochette/clutch bag Chardonne from the book "Couture Urbaine"

 

Fabrics used: a mix of old leftover from my stock for the failed test + black/teal Skai "comodo" from Laurent Tissus + cream & gold skaï also from Laurent Tissus

 

Magnetic button & thread from Laurent Tissu