A Second Attempt at Making a Minaudiere Clutch

If you read the post that came before this one, you will already know that I had a pretty rough experience making my first Minaudiere clutch. But, even though I had a rough experience with my first attempt at the Minaudiere clutch, I wasn’t going to let this stop me from trying again. This time I used a hard case frame from a different distributor who had shorter shipping times and all his clutches were cheaper! Win Win! Where were these guys during my first attempt at a Minaudiere?

This time around I was determined to not make the same mistakes as before. Instead of using a spray on glue, I used a tacky glue that required me to brush it onto the frame. This method allowed for more control and made less mess. It was a little difficult to not overdue the glue, since it seeps through the fabric if you add too much…woops. Luckily, this only happened to one side of the interior. When the fabrics were glued onto the frames, I stitched the raw edges of the fabrics together (just like on my first attempt). This time I did a better job of sewing the edges together which reduced the amount of “peekers”.

At this point, all I needed to do was glue the frames to the metal hardware to finish it off but I really wanted to add sides to this Minaudiere. So, I drew out a little triangular shape that was 3 inches long at the top (or should I say bottom?). the sides of my pattern were about 4 inches long and I cut off the point of the triangle so that I would have a 1 inch “flat peak” …I hope that made since.

To make the sides I cut out 4 pieces of my exterior fabric and I sandwhiched two of them together, right sides touching. I sewed along the long top side that was 3 inches long then i sewed down the 1 inch side. The sides were then turned inside out and ironed down to give them a nice crisp look. After this, I top stitched the top and bottom and then handstitched the sides to only one frame….I really hope that made sence.

At this point, I went ahead and glued the frame with the sides attached to it into the metal hardware and I let it sit for 24 hours so it dried properly. The next day, I worked on sewing in the sides to the loose frame. This was a bit tricky and it really turned into a puzzle for me. Luckily for me, I love puzzles!

While keeping the metal hardware closed, I laid down the loose frame (exterior touching the table) next to the finished portion of the Minaudiere. I then flipped one of the sides over the hardware so that the raw edge of the side was touching the side of the loose frame. I then sewed on the side to both exterior and interior fabrics.

I then flipped the other minaudieres’ side over the hardware and while holding the side, I then picked up the now partially attached frame and placed it on top of the hardware. Now the side and the frame are touching and can be sewn together just like all the other sides…though, this was a bit tricky since I had limited space to sew.

Now all that was left was to glue the other frame in! Easy peasy. The hardest part at this point was waiting 24 more hours to use it!