I love to felt bags because I think the size, model or colour of the bag is representative of us. My bag is one of my best friends because she is with me all day long. I will show you some pieces, all of them were made for custom orders. After the bag is felted I use leather and embroidery to create something different and beautiful, my style.
First I wanted to let people know the discount code for lables is now up, it is at the bottom of the post. sew-on-labels
I am almost finished the sewing of the small felt pouches. I still have to add the hardware. You can click on any of the pictures to get a larger view.
These are finished except for the grommet and carabiner. I may add some flowers to the 3 without but I am not sure if I will have time.
These ones are done but now I am thinking maybe the pink and blue ones should maybe have somthing on the back.
I haven’t washed the stabiliser away on these. I thought I would use 2 small black seed beads for the cats eyes. and when I was taking the picture I noticed I hadn’t put the x for the fishes eye on the green one. I am not sure if the red one need somthing at the bottom front or not. I like the motif on the red one, the weaver and spinner were on a bronze age pot someone posted in the Evangelical Church of Distaff Spinning group on Facebook.
These last ones I like quite a bit. The bright colours on the black felt look particularly good to me. The bee and thistle pouch still needs its stabiliser washed away. The 3D flowers I think need something on the lower half but it’s tricky with the tail and I don’t know what to put.
The first few pouches I sewed on some snaps. For the others I ordered a plastic snap kit. The snaps come in lots of different colours so I should be able to match them pretty well.
I forgot to take a picture so here is the one form Amazon, where I bought it. I paid the shipping and I ordered it on Saterday and it was here on Tuesday. That is fast delivery.
I haven’t had much time to felt and today I finally got some time to start some new little bags.
The last time I made little bags I forgot to add the spikes that end up as the closures so I made a bunch of spikes to be ready this time. Now to remember to make the rings for the bottom.
I make these bas self lining by putting fabric next to the resist. This creates a nuno felt lining and I don’t have to do it later. I licked this silk scarf a friend gave me for it’s nice bright colours and interesting dye pattern.
The other thing adding the nuno lining dies is add strength allowing me to make a thinner, less bulky bag. I set up 4 resists because if you are going to rub and roll some felt you might as well do make it worth while.
Here are the 4 bags ready to be put together. I try not to match the linings to the bag colour to much so it doesn’t disappear when I am done. I may have to switch the 2 middle ones.
At this point I had to stop and switch the laundry and got distracted with other things so I haven’t made it past this point today. You will notice that I have forgotten the rings at this point but I have a chance to fix this when I get back to them. It is not to late …..yet. Next time I will hopefully have some progress to show you.
Ann
I remembered to take photos of the blue/green bag I was in the process of making, though it really doesn’t look too much different to the separate panels 🙂 This is the front, or more blue side:
And this is the back/more green side:
I also made a smaller bag with some of the green pieces. Side 1:
Side 2:
I felt the urge to make something multi coloured after all the matching colour themes. I bought some of World of Wool’s dyed scoured BFL ages ago and had never used it, so I thought I’d add a few colourful bits to the top of a piece I’d laid out with various green shads of Merino. I might have got a bit carried away with the locks, and dyed viscose, oh, and dyed silk throwster’s:
I like colourful and shiny, so can never resist braiding when I see it! I bought these last week:
You can see the shine on an angle:
These are the blue and green nuno pieces I made using fabric strips a few weeks ago. I tried to include a wide range of colours as well as various fabrics.
This one was a mix of blue, purple, green and turquoise:
The two viscose pieces either side of this silk chiffon have great ripples, the chiffon just sunk in. It’s one of my favourite fabrics, from a dress I got at a charity shop and didn’t realise was silk until I used it and saw how it sunk in, and went back to search for the label.
I’ve noticed that some fabrics attach better if they are in the middle or aren’t too close to the edge. I’ll try a sample with just this thick blue scarf piece at the end, and see if it attaches better not so close to the edge.
All the fabrics I used on this piece were silk or strongly suspected of being silk:
It looks much better close up, and on an angle – the lighter pieces seem to reflect light a lot:
You can see the textures better too:
I think I made the strips a bit too long on the green piece, a few of these didn’t attach well along the edge, even though the rest of the pieces did. I usually try to make sure I work on edges, so I don’t know why it happens sometimes:
Slightly closer:
I did think I’d probably make one mostly blue bag and one mostly green, but once the strips were cut up and moved around to see which others they looked best with, it didn’t work out like that! Also, being conscious of how bags wear more on the back, picking pieces to work best there also influenced the final outcome. These are the two panels I made for my next bag:
I have to remember to take photos of it sewn up for next time!