I mentioned a while ago that colleagues from China sent home fabric and the materials needed to make a small coin sized purse and a larger hard closure purse.  I’d put the fabric away for awhile to get Christmas projects done, and then take some time away from my craft room.

But now I’m looking forward to spending some time there.  And I selected the small coin purse to start things out.  Might give me the motivation to hem pants for a different friend.  🙂

The tough part of the instructions for this purse is that all the instructions are in Chinese.  Luckily, there are pictures!

First, I’m going to sew exterior pieces, right sides together.

The instructions indicate I should snip the rounded edges of each sewn piece, but I opted to crack open my new Gingher pinking shears to get the job done.

Next, it’s time to turn the interior so that the right sides of the fabric are out, and then inserting it into the sewn exterior pieces, pining the edges.  I made sure to keep a portion of the area open so that I could turn it inside out.

Then I top stitched the opening, very close to the edge.  (The instructions indicate hand sewing, but we all know exactly how much I love hand stitching things.)

Now it’s time to sew the closure in.  Alas, I have no choice but to use hand stitching here, so it’s going to take me a while.  Bear with me…

Took me about 30 minutes.  I’m not going to lie – I also looked up tips for attaching coin purse closures, and found a good one here.

But, all I know, is that this coin purse turned out really, really cute.  I can’t wait to try more, actually.  Next time, I’ll probably use the invisible thread suggested in the site above.  In future projects like this, I’ll more than likely create the base so that it’ll sit on a table upright on its own.

Thank you, Nicole!