Felted bag class
Last time you saw the bag I was making, as a sample for this class. The class was at https://www.forestcovefarm.ca/. It was lovely. It was outside, and it was quite hot, but not as hot as the next week. There were a couple of pop-up tents and lots of trees for shade. There is also their store that is air-conditioned, so we could cool down if needed.
Most of the pictures are quite blurry. I am having trouble with my camera not focusing. Near the end of the day, I did find out that if I zoomed out to .9 it would focus, so the final shots are better. I have been to the Apple store, and they are ordering me a new camera.
It was a great group, with a wide range in ages from late teens to retired.
Adding the colour to the ropes took longer than expected, but I was glad I made the cores for them.
Corinne sent me a few pictures of the day, so here I am teaching.
Here are the blurry shots of everyone’s bags before felting.
I seem to have missed one. There should be 8.
Last night Corinne from Forest Cove sent me a few pictures. She had a shot of the bag I missed.
After much rubbing and rolling and them all thinking nothing was happening, I had them check the bags against the resists, and they were very surprised at how much they had shrunk. This gave some more energy, and they were able to finish the fulling. I only managed 3 pictures of the finished bag. Everyone was in a hurry to pop into the store and get cool and do some shopping.
The grey and purple one was much better in person. And I suspect that the purple will show much more when it is dry. I am hoping some people will send me pictures of thier dry and finished bags. They had to add the handles after they were dry. I did get one, but my email seems to have eaten it. I sent them home with instructions on blocking them and drying them and some tips on blocking them more with a steam iron if they want to.
Everyone seemed happy, so I am happy. I think I will switch to a bag with a slit handle next time, as the rope handle took longer than expected. By my next blog post, I should have a new camera in my phone. Hopefully that means I will take better pictures.
7 thoughts on “Felted bag class”
The surface designs are so imaginative – the felters must have been pleased with their bags!
And yes, it’s a good thing that you made the cores of the handles beforehand. Slit handles for the next class is a great idea as you wouldn’t have the prep and the process for the students would be quicker.
Not easy to work in the heat – kudos to you all. No chairs and low tables? How were everyone’s backs after?
I always love to see the designs people come up with. So diverse. It was very hot but there was lots of shade. a couple of ladies shortened their tables and sat down for part of it. I would like a hydraulic table so I could move it up and down depending on what part I was doing.
Those bags did look as if they’d be good when finished. The one that you missed when photographing the fibres laid out – the one with the very surprised cat – made me laugh. I hope you get lots of pictures of finished bags so you can show us some time.
I like the idea of slit handles, as Lyn says quicker for you and for your class. How will you make the actual handles? Will you roll them or just add more fibres? I ask because the first time I made these I had trouble deciding how far into the bag to make the slits. Too near the edge and they’d probably fail, too far in and they might be difficult to hold when carrying the bag, so I rolled/folded the handle over on itself.
Ann
I think 1.5 to 2.5 inches down, depending on the size of the bag. For small bags I wouldn’t bother with adding extra wool but for this size I would want to add more wool at least half an inch deeper than the slit placement. For the deeper ones, folding over early and felting it together would work, or after its finished folding and sewing down the area over the slit would make it easier to carry. The ones I have done I stretched the hole near the end so it was more open. Adding some stitching all round the opening will help prevent stretching overtime. I told all the students to use stitching to reinforce the holes they make for the handles. I did several ways on the sample bag to show them. You could probably felt a rope between the layers above the handle to make it more ergonomic.
Looks like everyone had fun even with the heat. You did a great job getting them to finish within the time frame. The bag without the rope will certainly be simpler. I’m glad adding the color worked though, that’s a good idea to get a stronger rope.
I saw a video where the person made a long rectangle of wool, wet it down first and then rolled it up to make a rope. That seemed to work on getting the air out and not needing to do the tricky rolling the air out from a dry layout.
Your class attendees achieved such lovely artistic designs on their bags, and you had some lovely fibre for them to use. I love them, and I hope they send you some photos of their dried finished bags. Thank you.
Nice class Ann! Those lucky students to have had the core ropes premade. I know you did it as a time saver but still… lucky. The designs were great. It looked like a hot but fun day.