I wanted a new wallet to replace my lovely elk-skin one that's frankly seen better days. After being dazzled by the amazing selection on various sites, I couldn't decide if I wanted another leather one or if I should make a switch to wool... or an RFID one. Then, I came up with a ingenius plan: I could do it myself.
Ended up with this. It's not perfect, but after all the pain I went through doing the blanket stitches by hand, I'm not ready to make a replacement just yet...
Front:
I used a combination of leather, batik cloth, a very nice checked lilac-and-white shirt cloth, and a tiny amount of transparency film, for the clear card flap.
This blog is not exactly a tutorial. It's just a record how how I did my wallet. I had help. Thanks to the powers of the Internet, I found tutorials online, which I recommend you to take a look. Especially true for The Modest Maven's blog, since I based my wallet on her pattern.
Modest Maven's Bi-fold Wallet (cloth):
RFID Wallet (with some instructions to construct a wallet from duct tape):
Twinkle's Patchwork Origami flowers (in Spanish. Scroll down to the 2nd tutorial):
Materials and measurements:
#1, Leather, front piece : although i started with a much larger piece, I ended up paring it down to Height:10.2cm x Length:19cm.
#2, Leather, window card flap (approx., you may need to cut it to a size you prefer): H:10.5cm x L7.5cm. Also, not pictured, transparency film approx namecard/credit card size.
Note on the leather: I managed to get some cheap on auction, but it had been in storage and wasn't very clean. I cleaned it with some shoe leather cleaner, left it to dry overnight, and then put on some heavy books on top for another 6-12 hours to flatten it after cutting.
#3, Medium-weight shirt fabric, inner piece. H:15cm x L 23cm
#4a&b, divider, supposed to be between #1 & #3. I omitted this piece, which is why it's crossed out.
#5a&b, Batik print fabric, pocket pieces. Cut 2 pieces, H:15cm x 45cm. 5b shows the same piece after folding.
Miscelleneous:
RFID blocker, see Step 1.
Patchwork flowers, see Step 5.
Step 1: RFID blocker
Heavy duty aluminium foil, duct tape.
The aluminium has to be at least 27microns thick. 1 layer of heavy duty foil is only 24microns thick, so you need 2 layers per pocket flap.
For a wallet with these dimensions, cut 2 24cm x 16cm pieces. Then fold each of them in two and stick on duct tape on both sides. (I know, that's 14x8cm. I had to pare it down some.)
Your sewing machine needs to be able to handle 3-4 layers of denim fabric to be able to add this on. (If you can't or prefer an easier way, do this and cut it to fit the back of your wallet pockets afterwards).
Step 2: Pocket flaps
The Modest Maven's tutorial has an excellent how to for this segment, so I shan't repeat that here. You basically need to iron the flaps by using a paper namecard to measure out each pocket.
Note: plastic-based cards might melt or wrap when you iron over them. They're also too thick to get the crisp edges you want, defeating the whole purpose of ironing in the first place. Don't do it.
As you can see, the lower-most pocket is lower than the other 2 pockets - half of the card is showing. I'd cut my fabric too short (L41cm, instead of 45cm) thus I had to improvise.
I sewed a line across each pocket holder, but that's a preference thing. I find that the shape holds better than by just sewing the edges, as proposed by the Maven.
If you want to sew in the RFID blockers, sew about 1cm(or more, depending how wide you want your pockets to be) from the edges(see the purple line below). Then cut the RFID blocker and slip it in the back pocket. Do this for both pocket flaps. If you sew the RFID blockers in place - which is what I did - it will wrap a little when you fold it inside-out afterwards. It won't affect the overall functionally of the finished product, though. At best it will feel a little uneven in the innermost pockets.
I like having a card flap with a window for my ID cards. What I did here was to shape it after a store membership card. Then I cut the corners to make them fit and glued on the transparency film with a bit of superglue.
Because I used leather, I scoured forums to see what people suggested. You can use shoe glue, which is is great for leather. Loctite has a special leather glue too, which I couldn't find in Swedish stores. Their website suggested something called "Power Flex", which dries clear and doesn't dry stiff - and more crucially, inexpensive and readily available.
Finished dimensions (excluding the flap at the bottom) H:6cm, L: 9.2cm.
If you want to replicate this extra pocket, DON'T GLUE THE TRANSPERENCY FILM ON YET.
Use some masking tape or something similar to hold down the frame shape in place while you do the next step.
Step 4: Attaching card pockets to inner piece.
Position the leather flap where you'd want it. Mine ended up being almost center, but I can live with that. Attach the leather card holder to one of the pocket flaps, pocket flap facing right side up and leather flap facing down. Stitch line is indicated by the pen mark - it's been stitched on here.
Then, place the pockets front-side down on the right side of the inner pocket. Sew 1.5 cm from the edge all around.
Finally, turn the pockets inside out. 
Voila, almost done. OK, NOW you can glue that transparency flap on. Mine looks terrible because in the process of turning that flap, the film broke because I'd glued it on earlier. Learn from my mistakes.
As you can see from the picture, I have a 2cm gap between pockets. This is a bit too wide really - a 1cm gap would have been sufficient. Oh, well.
Technically you could stop here if you didn't want the paper money pocket... but not me.
I measured the outer leather piece against the finished inner piece and cut it down to size.
Step 5: Prettify your outer piece
Because it looked too plain and boring as is - plus, yellow really isn't my first choice in colour (blue is) - I decided to add some simple patchwork flowers on. (See Twinkle's tutorial link above.)
I cut a total of 4 circular pieces, 2 at approximately 5cm diameter and the others 4cm diameter. I just used drinking glasses and drew around it on scrap pieces of cloth, then sewed right sides together with 0.5cm seam allowance. Go slow and turn the cloth often.
My hack: make a small insicion on one side only (roughly indicated by the purple line, on the inside piece so the cut won't show later). Then pull it inside out through the incision. Iron it out if you wish.
To make the flower, first fold it to almost half.
The flower stalks were cast-offs from the larger inner piece(#3). I serged it, yielding a 0.6cm width and discarded the excess. (Luckily my serger thread is mostly gold and white so it matched the colour scheme of my wallet.)
I played a little with the pieces, and once I was happy with how it looked, I sewed the stalks onto the outer leather piece.
If you want to handstitch the outer leather to the inner part too, consider running the stitch line with an unthreaded machine at the longest stitch length available. It makes it easer to push your needle through afterwards.
You could decorate the back (and even the card flap) if you wished, but that would add extra bulk and since I sometimes put my wallet in my back pocket, it might get uncomfortable. So I just stuck to decorating the front.
Step 6: Assembly
Align your inner piece to the outer piece.
Grey strong thread was used to blanket-stitch here, using the pocket flaps as a guide.
Strong thread is just that - it's at least twice as thick as normal sewing thread. Recommended for items that will see a lot of wear and tear.
You could use a 2-ply normal thread, but this process involves a lot of stitching involving a lot of thread, and unless you're very careful or lucky, tangles and thread-bunching will have you breaking down in tears before long. Trust me, I've been there. Go with strong thread.
The reason I did this was because I already had problems sewing the inner part with the RFID blockers, and I wasn't sure if I could fit all the layers onto the sewing machine. Likely it's much easier to do if your wallet is just cloth.
Finished!
Here you can see the grey strong thread I used, next to it is the bright yellow-gold normal sewing thread used in the making of the inner part.
Time to make a wallet transfer!
P/S
If you're wondering about that single grommet piece, it's purely decorative since I can't leave things well alone. I used my Crop-A-Dile device to do it. Here's a picture of the set. I don't use it often enough :)
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