Curly Locks Bag Revisited

Earlier this summer I made a bag with curly locks on one side and a different pattern on the back side. The more I looked at it, the more I hated having dissimilar motifs on one bag. Yesterday I felted up a piece of felt with curly lamb's wool locks and sewed on an external pocket. Now the bag has two sides that match and I am much happier with it. The upcycled leather belt strap is quite long so it can be worn cross body, and both ends of the strap have extra holes so it can be shortened if needed.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/82385575/curly-lambs-locks-gray-felted-wool

Celtic Cross, Part II

The colors of the prefelt Celtic cross were dulled by the brown fibers that crept through. The embroidery delineates the design, but I missed the saturated colors from the prefelt. I decided to make another cross to put on the other side of the bag.

The handles are once again an upcycled leather belt. The trim on the top edge of the bag is silk tartan upcycled fabric.

Notice the color of the grass in the background. This August has been terribly hot and dry, even for Texas.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/81693657/celtic-cross-wool-felted-tote-bag

Celtic Cross

The inside layer of wool is white corriedale, andthe middle layer is the multi-colored BFL in Redwood Forest. I hope the colors all show through the white to make a lighter colored interior but still showing the lovely shades of blue, green and brown. The exterior is natural brown with a little blue and green carded in.

I made a length of felt out of the BFL to cut up for the design which I will felt in place. After it is felted the plan is to use the green yarn to add the detail to the Celtic cross. The template for the cross was an image from layeducation.org. By the time the felted project is complete it may not resemble the original at all!

Upcycled Leather Belt Bag Handles

To use a leather belt for purse or tote bag handles, first assemble the tools. My favorite sources for belts are the Goodwill where they are $1.99 each, or the Genesis Thrift Shop in Dallas where they cost less than $5. I've tried lots of different kinds, and I prefer leather that is not bonded or sewn. Lots of belts are a different color on the back side. For handles I like the front and back to be the same color.

Cut the leather to length. If you don't like the holes in most belts, cut the the end off and make a shorter strap. Or punch holes the entire length of the belt to make them look intentional.

The easiest way to attach them is to use rawhide and lace it in place. The rawhide lacing makes a nice, strong junction. I would hate to have the handles fall off of something I had made.

For a rawhide lacing attachment, use a leather punch for a nice neat hole. Depending on the size of the bag, I usually either use four holes or six, but you really could lace it any way you would like. On the natural colored wool bag in the photos there are four holes in each end of the belt. Since the top of the bag is folded over, I put a slit in the top edge and sandwiched the leather in between the wool so the lacing could go through two layers of felt. It is a fairly large bag and I wanted it to have extra load bearing area. I use small scissors that have a very sharp point for poking holes in the felt. You can see the belt end peeking out of the bottom of the folded over edge in one photo.

If you don't want the lacing to show, cover it with something. On the outside of the bag I sometimes use beads threaded through the lacing. On the inside I often line the top several inches to both cover the attachment and add a contrasting color or texture.

When using belts that are woven strips of leather I poke the lacing through existing gaps instead of using a leather punch.

It's been a busy week. I nuno felted another tote bag and found a straw bag at a thrift shop that had great leather handles. They've been repurposed onto my felt tote. The bag is lying in snow, which is probably why I managed to make two scarves and two bags. On the rare occasions it snows in North Texas you may as well stay in because the roads will are terrible.

The bag with the metal handles has the silk nuno felted on the outside so you can see the bead work. Both bags have pockets felted inside.

All of these natural colors in the bags I've made recently had me craving color, so I made one in shades of aqua that shouts. The other one is shibori dyed in an organic green dye.

Another Organic Earth-tone Bag

This was felted with undyed merino batts on upcycled silk organza. The outside has silk hankies felted in, but the sheen of the silk was lost in all of the wool fiber. The silk hankies are cobweb fine. The strap is a repurposed leather belt laced in place beneath the folded over part. There is almost a pound of wool in this large tote bag!

The lady who bought it is planning to use it as her BSF bag to carry her three ring binder and bible to class.

Quilted Felt

I didn't originally intend to quilt the polka dots on the bag. The merino wool is nuno felted onto red silk and the red dye ran and tinged the white pink! The pink and brown didn't look very good, so I felted a piece of white with brown polka dots. The dots are the same color brown as the bag, but I put the darker side in to make it look more interesting. But I was afraid the white would slide around if I only sewed the perimeter, so the obvious solution was to quilt each dot, anchoring the white in place.

The handles are belts that have been repurposed into handles.

I like larger bags like this to have a flat bottom so you can set them on the floor without them falling over.

Felted Purses

Here are three of the purses I made for the Denton Craft Show. They all are inspired by nature. Pebbles in a riverbed, the littoral area at the beach, and a birch tree. The birch tree is nuno felted on linen.