W- and I have been playing The Legend of Heroes: him on his PS Vita, and me on the PSP he lent me. He’s been using his PS Vita more now, so he was looking around for a case. He liked the design of Waterfield’s PS Vita CitySlicker, but didn’t need all the bells and whistles. He asked me to see if I could make a PS Vita clutch with snaps.

We had left-over Ultrasuede from the time we cat-proofed the sofa and extra fleece from J-‘s cosplaying. I wanted to see if I could figure out the assembly without referring to tutorials, so I prototyped something with a little hand-sewing. It was a good start, but it didn’t quite feel right. I kept thinking about the design during my bike rides to and from work.

On my next free day, I sat down with my laptop, read through a couple of clutch sewing tutorials, made a test one (it turned out to be slightly too small for my PSP), and then sewed this:

Ultrasuede with a bright orange fleece lining. Bonus: it matches the couch. Whee!

It was actually pretty fun. It was less frustrating than trying to make clothes. Making small things means you can get feedback and payoff faster. I chalked all of my seams and allowances, and my measurements worked out. For the most part, things lined up nicely. (The snaps were the only iffy bit.)

W-‘s thinking of modifying it to have more interfacing so that it’s stiffer. The nice thing about making things yourself is that you can tweak things without worrying too much.

Yay! One small step towards developing more of those practical skills I want to have. Hmm… what else should I clutch-ify? Maybe I can look for more of these little organizer patterns and see if I can use them around the house.