Self Assembly Required

DIY dressmaking + crafts with Emily

Mini project 1 : An upcycled denim cardholder

I hate bulky purses. I’ve owned many and always abandoned them pretty quickly afterwards. I like to have things I can throw in a pocket and not worry about it fitting! 

I was planning to buy a nice leather cardholder instead but everything is unreasonably expensive so I thought why not make one!

I found a few tutorials online (I liked this one and this one) but in the end I just drafted my own. 

I used the end of an old pair of jeans for the exterior and some leftover floral cotton from another project to make this!

I went for a deconstructed denim look on the exterior – I really wanted those frayed edges for some unfathomable reason. And I opted for a bright and happy cotton print for the interior with 2 card slots. It’s basically a glorified Oyster card holder…

And it cost me nothing to make since these were all waste fabrics I had lying around!

Not too shabby for an hour’s work I think!

I’m adding a tutorial on the end here if anyone else wants to make one!

Fabric needed:

Thick denim 1 piece – 10cm x 15cm (I used two pieces on top of each other as mine was pretty thin)

Cotton lining 1 piece – 10cm x 15cm

Fusible interfacing 2 pieces – 9cm x 14cm

Cotton pocket 2 pieces – 7cm x 10cm

Pocket interfacing 2 pieces – 7cm x 10cm

  1. Iron on your interfacing. Pocket pieces are the same size as their interfacing but the larger pieces have interfacing 5mm smaller than the edge all the way round. 
  2. Fold over one of the long edges of each pocket piece and stitch down
  3. Place each pocket piece over the lining piece and stitch along the outer edge.
  4. Fold back the edges of the lining by 5mm. This is where having the interfacing slightly smaller will help!
  5. Lay this over the interfaced side of your denim piece and sew together at the edges. (You can also sew a line through the middle if you wanted). 
  6. Fold in half and press your cardholder flat 
  7. Ruffle up the edges of the frayed denim and trim if necessary. 

And ta-da, it’s done! You can always do your own variations on that or change it up completely!

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