I’m sure I’ve said it before, but planning a project – doesn’t seem to matter what kind – always takes at least twice as long as you imagine! I’ve been trying to match felt with backing fabric, zips and cords for small zipped bags or shoulder bags. Sometimes it seems straightforward. I cut a piece of felt in half and found a piece of fabric to match. I thought this piece would make a nice bag, so matched some cord too:

I used the same fabric for the other half of the felt piece. I think I’ll add a zip to this, but don’t have one to match yet:

The fabric seems perfect for both pieces of the felt. But when I was moving things around, I placed the pieces next to each other differently and suddenly they didn’t seem to match!

Luckily I’ve got these photos to refer back to, though the pieces won’t actually be next to each other on the finished bag. I thought I’d found the perfect combo of backing fabric, felt, zip and cord for the next bag project:

I’m not quite so sure when I put the zip and cord on the back of the felt, but let me know what you think?

These two pieces don’t seem to match, but put together, I quite like them:

I had some fabric with purple in it, the piece wasn’t right, but putting it close to the felt made me think I might need something more purple:

When I was looking through my fabric pieces, I found some upholstery samples I got a while ago:

These ones either look like ink stains, or birds on a branch, it changes each time I look!

I’m not sure I have the exact fabrics I need yet, which can only mean a trip to the fabric shop is well needed 🙂