Park Treats Workman's Wallet (Pattern Testing - ChrisW designs)

I'm really loving the fast patterns for testing, like this fun Workman's Wallet from ChrisW Designs! It's a raw edge project, meaning it has to be made with something that won't fray, like cork, leather or vinyl. I have a LOT of vinyl (and some cork), so I should probably make a few more of these!

Oh look, a cute simple wallet...

With fancy pockets and a snap coin part...

And BAM! hidden pockets!

Folded up, squishes a little flatter, but kind of thick since I used thick vinyl

The pattern comes with the printable pieces AND svg files so you can cut it on your cutting machine for perfect cuts and making it even faster! I have a scan and cut machine, but it's in the back of a cabinet, so it was just faster for me to cut the pieces instead of trying to dig it out and remember how to use it...LOL! There are even projector files, plus a youtube video to walk you through it!

The green is a shimmery vinyl, sparkles like wet sand!

The pattern calls for using a glue to keep the pieces in place for easier sewing, and I decided to go with Fabri-tac. There are a few pieces you really need to glue, like the outside body, coin pocket flap, and the snap support, but about halfway through I got impatient with waiting for the glue to dry enough to not gum up my needle and just used clips and sewed carefully. The glue is actually really great to make sure everything lines up nicely. 

You should glue this piece, which I did, and also did extra lines of sewing because I don't trust glue...

I picked a fun smooth vinyl from Backstitch Fabrics for my wallet, but I didn't really think about how thick is was...this is the heavy smooth vinyl and after a few layers, it got pretty thick! I paired it with a thin sandbox vinyl from My Punkbroidery, but it still ended up with some weight to it. I think in the future, either the lightweight smooth or even textured vinyl would be better. 

There is a small gap at the bottom, upon testing, a dime fits through, but not a quarter or nickel. 

The wallet has a surprising amount of pockets for something so small! There is the main bill pocket, an ID pocket, and when you lift that up, there is another card slot behind the ID pocket, plus 3 more card pockets, a coin pocket on the other side (that can be replaced with MORE card pockets), plus a pocket behind the card slots and the coin pocket!

My lime green stitching did not show up in pictures...

Inside the coin pocket, I didn't glue the snap support piece as much as I should have.

You can kind of see the card slots here...

Since it ended up a little thicker, I decided to try edge painting on my wallet. This is only about the 2nd time I've tried it, and I'm still learning the technique. You need to let it dry between the layers, which in my mind is like 24 hours...but I think some of the guides I read said something about 1-3 hours? I could be making that up. I think now that I almost have the base layers down I might be able to cut back to only about 20 minutes or an hour since I won't be putting it on as thick...it needs to be dry enough to do a little light sanding. I'm using a dense edge coat, so it builds up a nice edge pretty fast!

Pre-edge coating, you can definitely see each layer that was sewn together.

The 3rd layer is probably enough for the bottom, the layers are almost 'hidden'

Probably need another coat on the side pieces, my alignment was slightly off, so I have to fill in the gap a little more.

After 3 layers of base coat, I think I'm only 1 more layer of base away from doing the color and top coats! I'll try to do an actual blog post about it, but I forgot to take pics for each of the base layers...guess I need to make another Workman's wallet!  Don't forget to grab your copy of the pattern while it's on sale for just a few more days!