Fabric wallet

I had some fabric scraps left over from the dice bag project and I wanted to replace a cheap old wallet that did not have much in the way of card organization. At the time of me making this, I had planned a few flights out for Open Sauce 2025, a maker con. Surprisingly, the TSA allows sewing needles into aircraft, and so this project was nicely thematic aircraft-friendly time-killer.

I wanted the wallet to be relatively small, but still be able to comfortably carry cash and coins. I had considered printing out a ridge-style card wallet, but these wallets use money clips instead of pockets to hold bills. I find that bills are more easily searchable within pockets. Also, these card wallets also cannot easily store coins. So I decided to make a more traditional bifold, designed to be the minimum size required to carry cash and cards.

Thus, the wallet is exactly the height of US currency, and only slightly wider than a standard card (the additional width is required to account for the fact that the hinge requires horizontal space). It has four side-entry card pockets, two top-entry card pockets, and a large cash pocket. The front side-entry pockets are offset deeper into the wallet, so the rear cards are still accessible without having to move the front cards out of the way.

The wallet is made entirely out of cotton fabric. The inner pockets are cut out of a patterned navy blue fabric. The outer facing of the wallet is cut out of a lighter blue fabric, and reinforced with an additional layer of blue fabric and interfacing material. The tolerences on this wallet were too small to allow for machine-stitching, so the entire wallet is hand-stitched with navy blue cotton thread.

I use one top entry pocket for an unusually shaped car key (pictured below), and the other top entry pocket for coins. The cash pocket is (unsurprisingly) used for cash, and the card pockets provide sufficient organization for up to twelve cards (three per pocket). For my purposes, seven cards suffice.