Rainbow Crochet Zipped Coin Purse Tutorial

This tutorial is to explain how I made my Rainbow Crochet Zipped Coin Purse. It’s my first tutorial, so I hope it makes sense (let me know if it doesn’t) and please excuse some dodgy low-light photography!

To start with you need to crochet your circle. You will need crochet yarn in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Now use the tutorial from Attic24, or your own pattern of choice. I used DK cotton yarn and half treble stitches (UK). You must start with the violet and continue in reverse rainbow order. When my circle was complete I made a further round of single crochet in red. My circle had a finished diameter of about 5.5 inches.

When you fold the circle in half it will look like a little crocheted rainbow:

To turn this rainbow into a zipped coin purse you will need a small piece of lining fabric (8 inches square is plenty) and a zip slightly longer than the curved edge. My rainbow measured about 8.5 inches along the curved edge. Cut two small fabric tabs about 1.5 inches square:

Turn under a half-inch on one side of each tab and pin that edge onto the zip:

Undo the zip half way. From the far end of one tab to the far end of the other should measure about 1 inch longer than the curved edge of your rainbow.

Stitch, close to the turned edge of each tab:

Trim the excess zip on each end:

Trim the tabs to slant inwards:

Fold the lining fabric in half and lay the rainbow on the fabric:

Cut around the rainbow leaving a half-inch border to give the rough size and shape for your lining:

Put some tiny notches along the curved edges of the lining:

Matching the centres of the zip and fabric, pin the zip right side up along one piece of lining fabric, also right side up (remember you will want to see the right side of the fabric inside the coin purse when you undo the zip).

Now use the zip foot on your sewing machine and stitch the zip to the lining about a quarter-inch from the zip teeth.

Now lay the second piece of lining down, right side up and pin the second edge of the zip onto it so the right sides of the fabric face each other and the zip is right side outermost:

Stitch a quarter-inch from the zip teeth in the same way.

At this point open the zip and keep it open until you finish. Things should be looking like this:

Lay the rainbow on the lining to check the size, and mark where you need to sew. Stitch the lining pieces together all the way across and trim the excess:

Now place the lining inside the rainbow. Begin by matching the centre of the zip with the centre of the curved edge and pin the zip to the rainbow. Tuck in the tab ends neatly as shown below (this stage requires a fair amount of poking, wiggling and fidgeting the lining until it looks right!):

Slip stitch the rainbow to the zip along the line of stitching as neatly as possible.

And there we have it! A cute little coin purse!

With a neat lining and zip fastening!

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