Noodlehead's Basic Boys Wallet

Back in March when Dana at MADE was inspiring all of us with Celebrate the Boy, Noodlehead's basic boys wallet caught my eye, but at the time I was up to my eyeballs teaching freshman how to write a research paper. Add six months, subtract one teaching career, multiply by one very insistent four year old and I cleared an afternoon to try my own hand at wallet making.

Anna at Noodlehead created a cool urban wallet with wool suiting, leather, and grommets. Although I thought the style rocked, my four year old still prefers pictures to graphics or textures. He scrounged my fabric scraps until he found the preschool friendly lizards leftover from an I-Spy Swap I participated in over at Obsessively Stitching.

I decided to add a tab because I knew the wallet would not be fitting in my son's pocket for at least another a year or too.

I followed the tutorial for the body of the wallet. I found the directions easy to follow, and only two small discrepancies:

• First, when I was ironing the 8.5" x 10.5" fabric into the accordion shape that would hold cards the numbers did not add up. She indicated to make folds 3", 1.5", 2", 1.5", and 2" apart, but that only adds up to 10" not 10.5". I ended up just cutting a 1/4" off the top and bottom so that the finished size was 8.5" x 4".
• The other was a simple mistype. She indicated to put the wrong sides together and stitch with a 1/2" seam allowance then open and iron so wrong sides were facing. Clearly she meant to say put right sides together, stitch, then iron so wrong sides are facing; but it could throw a beginner if they were not studying the pictures closely.

My stash of medium weight interfacing was empty, so I used deco heavyweight interfacing. To accommodate the extra bulkiness I cut the interfacing without seam allowances.

You can also see where I left the space to turn and top stitch and insert the tab for snapping on the left. This is where I made a major mistake. I forgot to consider which side of the wallet the tab should be on (the right side so it closes like a book) and instead I left the wrong side open. In addition, it was exceptionally hard to get the 1/4" seam allowance to iron under with the thick accordion layers of fabric. Follow Noodlehead's tutorial and leave your turn and top stitch opening at the top where there are fewer layers of fabric.

I compensated for messing up the tab by creating a longer one, 4.5" when turned and finished, and used two small grommets to attach it to the back of the wallet.

After begging for months for his wallet, my son spent the afternoon showing everyone at his big sister's school his new wallet. Thank you Noodlehead and MADE!