DIY Trompe L’oeil Sequin Bag Sweater

Jan 5, 2012 | DIY

From time to time I get “how do I DIY this…?” questions from my readers, and I’m always glad to help out!  Though I may not be able to actually make the item in question (due to time or materials constraints), hopefully I can at least offer up some advice to put you on the right path to making it yourself.  I received this question on one of my posts from last week:

I have a request, since you are the best of the best, could you maybe make one of these?

Well I don’t know about the best of the best <*blushes*> but I do know how to translate high-priced into DIY-able!!  And for $518, that Marcus Lupfer sweater is just begging for it!!;-)

The absolute easiest way to DIY this?  Find a sequined handbag and sew it onto your sweater.  Seriously!  This would give you a working purse attached to your clothing – how neat.  Also, since it’s after the holiday season, many sequined evening bags are on sale.  Ebay is also a great source for the sequined, vintage-style pouches that this one looks like.

If you don’t want to literally sew a bag onto your sweater…when it comes to sequined and beaded stuff, there often isn’t a way to do-it-yourself with sequins…unless you want to sew all those little sequins on yourself.  (I did this for a top I wanted to DIY, and it took forever.)  The results are indistinguishable from the original because of the handiwork, but I think it’s a contradiction of the idea of quick-and-easy DIY.

So to DIY this relatively quickly, but still as faithfully as possible to the original, you’ll have to compromise a bit.  There’s still a lot of hand-sewing involved…and you potentially could stick a lot of this on using Jewel It! Embellishing Glue…but I’d really recommend sewing as much of it as you possibly can, unless you want stuff peeling off your sweater as your wearing it.  Also, because of all the beaded and sequin trims involved, collecting all the materials for this could get pretty expensive.  Here’s my list of recommended materials and how to:

Materials:

*gray sweater

*2 black tassels

*1 short plastic-tooth black zipper

*stretchy sequin trim in black, silver, and purple (I’ve used this before in my Sequin Bow Belt Tutorial)

*lightweight gold curb chain

*silver beaded trim (I think this trim from M&J Trimming is a pretty good match!)

*pre-strung silver bugle beads (not the kind loose in the bag; to save you some trouble)

*black acrylic paint

How-To:

1. Use marking chalk to sketch out the size and shape of your bag on the sweater, and mark where the zipper would go.

2. Hand-sew the silver beaded trim from the top of the bag diagonally towards the shoulder, and also on the other side of the bag under the arm.

3. Hand-sew the silver sequin trim to the area below where the zipper will be.  Cut short strips and place them vertically, slightly overlapping.

4. Use the acrylic paint to color in some of the sequins in a quilting pattern.  Allow to dry.

5. Take strips of the black and the purple sequin trim and weave them together (like a basket-weave) to make an interlocking diamond pattern.  Hand-stitch at the overlapping areas to secure.

6. Hand-stitch this interlocked rectangle to the top part of the bag area on the sweater.

7. Cut the top of the zipper accordingly, and hand-stitch the shortened zipper to the sweater, covering up the edges of both areas of sequins.

8. Attach a tassel to each end of the gold chain, cut the chain in half, and-stitch to one side of the bag.

9. Hand-stitch strings of bugle beads in-between the colors in the top part of the bag.

If anybody else out there has a “How do I DIY…?” let me know in the comments, or ask away on Formspring.me! (leave the URL of the inspiration piece, please!)

Ask “How do I DIY…?” on Formspring.me

Thanks for your question – hope that helped!
xoxox
Carly

~If you liked this post, please share it!~