One pretty skein I bought at the Deerfield Fair, though, I had enough of to make a felted bag. I got the instructions from One-Skein Wonders: 101 Yarn Shop Favorites. It's the Quick Felted Bag on page 27. Except, me being me, I thought I might make it a slightly different size. Not good, when you're dealing with a process like felting. You never really know what you're going to get as a finished project. I decided to make it a bit wider, but that meant that it wasn't as tall. This is what it looked like before felting, if I can find the picture. Nope, can't find it. Must be on the old digital camera, which means I have to find some batteries....anyway....
Then I threw it in the washing machine with hot water and let chemistry do its thing. This is what I ended up with:
This was all done sometime last year, before we sold the house and moved. The bag hung on the knob to my closet door for several months, looking a bit forlorn. I think my husband was wondering what its purpose was, but being the great guy he is, he doesn't ask too many questions about works in progress unless they get in his way or make the house look too messy.
I had been thinking for some time that the bag needed a lining, something to give it some body. Right now it's a bit floppy. I like a bag that stands up on its own. Also, anything you put in this was going to come out linty. The colors are lovely, but the felt is quite fuzzy. I'm not sure if I should shave it a bit, give it a haircut or something.
Several years ago, the women's group I belong to (Circle of Home and Family) made bags for the local public library. In Lisbon Falls, Maine, there was a factory outlet, and sometimes you could get great deals on beautiful blankets, fabric, etc.(It's in Brunswick, now, Maine Woolens, but they don't seem to have a website)
I bought a huge roll of upholstery weight fabric that we used to make the bags. (I also bought fabric there which I used to make a cover for the futon we used to have, and huge pillows for it, and some to reupholster the couch we used to have) It's a deep purple color. When I was looking through my fabric yesterday to find something to line the bag with, I found some of this purple stuff and thought it would be perfect - a good weight to give the bag the body I wanted.
Strangely, both ends of the piece I had left was hemmed. I am pretty sure we did not do this, so it must have been on the original roll of fabric or something. But it was handy, as I made sure the pieces I cut were right on that edge, which mean less work for me!
So I measured carefully, was glad I knew how to add fractions when figuring out what size to cut the lining pieces, etc. and cut. Once I had cut two pieces, I realized that the lining was a bit short, and wouldn't come up high enough on the inside sides of the bag. (or so I thought) So I remeasured and cut a piece a bit wider, sewed the whole lining together and pinned it up to hand sew into the bag. I pinned the lining on the outside of the bag, which made it very easy to whipstitch into the bag. It also gave me a false sense of security though!
Once I had finished sewing it into the bag, I turned the whole thing right side out. And discovered that I would have been better off to use the original piece I had cut. For some reason, the lining was too big for the inside of the bag.
So then I had to spend an hour fiddling with the lining, sewing a couple tucks into it, etc, in order to get it to fit right. *Sigh*. In the end, it's not quite as nice as I would have liked, but it does work.
I even managed to get a pocket inside! I used the original what-I-thought-was-too-small-but-would-have-been-perfect piece I had cut to cut out a pocket.
The bag stands up nicely on it's own. it's only about 7 inches tall, and about 10 or 11 inches long, but it will be big enough for a small knitting or crochet project in progress. Because, you know, I need another one of those. Kind of pretty.
No comments:
Post a Comment