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I've been having some huge blog absences lately - basically same old story of juggling lots of things, yadda yadda. You've heard it here before ;)
One thing I've been working on steadily is my clutch purse design. It's been quite a lot of work to get it perfect - not enough interfacing, interfacing like cardboard, interfacing too heavy, interfacing+wadding too bulky, magnetic clip not reinforced enough, corners too rounded ... until finally I got it right.
And I couldn't have done it without some fantastic advice from the very wonderful Nicole Mallalieu! After much encouragement from Pip I finally got around to visiting Nicole in her studio. And she was so nice! I didn't expect to come away with so much know how (really I should have been paying for a class to get this information) and it was all really valuable advice. Nicole is a self professed perfectionist and my 5 prototype clutches is pretty standard for her. If for some crazy reason you haven't heard of Nikki yet, hop over to her online shop & blog. All the bag making supplies you need, tutorials, classes - a one stop shop :)
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A stack of prototypes (yep the wooden feature panel is still in the works :) )
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I wasn't very happy with the idea of my clutch purses needing to be clutched. I like my bags to be hands free. So some nice sturdy removable wrist straps needed to be developed :)
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Making the wrist straps with a double headed rivet to join together all those layers. My machine was never going to get through all that.
Anyway I've popped a few up in my shop to see if they were worth all this hard work :)