Felted Bag with Flowers

Felted Tote with Flowers



More than two years ago, I took a class at my local yarn shop to make this felted tote.  The class primarily focused on making flowers and leaves and other embellishments to decorate the tote.  I quickly feel out of love with the project. I had the tote about half done and the only flowers I made were the flowers I made in class.

Fast forward about two years.  I had signed up for a class to make felted slippers on September 15, 2018, with the same instructor and I still had not finished the project from the last class she taught more than two years prior. I considered ripping apart the bag and using the wool from the bag for the slippers.  It turns out the yarn I needed for the slippers is worsted weight and the yarn I used in the tote is chunky weight.  So I guess this was the Universe's way of telling me to finish the tote.

So this week I madly worked on the bag and finished it up.  I made a few flowers, too.  Finally... this project is complete.

Here are some photos to show you the completed tote and some other photos which show what the photo looked like while in progress.  The finished bay is about 11 inches tall.  It is about 16 inches wide and about 5 inches deep. The bottom of the bag is rectangular in shape.  To give you an idea how much this bag shrank when felted, the bag was about 23 inches tall prior to felting.  I felted the heck out of this bag!




I love the fabric I used for lining.  I was contemplating shopping for special fabric to line the bag but I looked across my craft room and noticed this plaid flannel sitting on the shelves.  I actually used the wrong side of the flannel for the lining so it looks like cotton (not flannel).  If I am not mistaken, this is fabric I got from my mom.  Thanks, Mom!





In the bottom of the bag, I used a piece of foam poster board from the craft section of the store; you can also find foam poster board in office supply stores.  I cut the foam poster board to size and then made a little fabric pillow case for the foam poster board.  I sewed shut the pillow case to complete enclose the board in fabric.  It's nice to have a little rigidity at the bottom of the bag I think.



Here's a photo I snapped just prior to felting.



This is what the flowers looked like after felting; I just ended up using three of the flowers.



Here is a photo of the bag while I am knitting it.  The green is my t-shirt,the blue is my shorts, and you can see that the bag goes all the way from my hips to below my knee.  You can also see the stitch definition in the knitting.  All of the stitches disappear in the felting process.  It's amazing!

Today (9-15-18) I took the felted slipper class and I already have one slipper nearly completed.  We are finishing the slippers over the course of the next week and then next Saturday we will go to the instructor's home and we will all felt our slippers together.  Phew! So glad it's NOT going to take me two plus years to complete this project!

Other miscellaneous information:

Yarn used for the tote is Kraemer Mauch Chunky in the "Eggplant" color way.
Flowers were crocheted in Plymouth Gina.

Pattern link (tote)... Montana Felted Eco-Tote click HERE.
Pattern link (flowers used on my bag)... click HERE.

Beaded Bag OFFICIALLY Done!



I've actually had this done since the end of January but needed to sew in a liner.  I accomplished that today and am pretty happy with my little bag. No idea what I will do with it, but the bag is pretty cool and was fun to make.  It was a lot more work than I expected.  You may recall this yarn and bead combination was going to be a beaded scarf, but the yarn got re-purposed to make this pattern called "Exploring Spirals" by the Alarming Female.  The Ravelry pattern link can be found HERE.  





Ah, such pretty fabric.  I love this fabric with it's purple, green, tan, blue, aqua... both sides of the fabric are pretty in my opinion.  I was leaning toward using the wrong side of the fabric but my friend Harriet convinced me to use the right side of the fabric with the veins of gold. The beads have an iridescent quality to so the gold in the fabric liner really works! Thanks Harriet!



In case you are wondering, I used a lid from a Cool Whip container in the base of the bag.  I put two layers of quilt batting in the lid and then sandwiched the lid between two larger circles of fabric with the right side of the fabric facing out.  Then I stitched the circle together with the zipper foot on my machine to get close to the lid. Then I stitched a rectangle of fabric around the circle and then sewed the side seam to close the circle. Next I folded the top edge down to the desired height and then stitched it into the bag by hand.  Phew, it was a lot of work. It took me a few hours, but well worth it. The bag has a very nice finished look now and the fabric is sturdy enough to give the bag some more structure or body. 

Photo of the BOTTOM of the bag.

I am now madly working on my chocolate colored beaded scarf.  I am hoping to have it finished soon.  Will need some serious blocking but it's turning out nicely.  Can't wait to share when it's all done...

Beaded Bag in progress

I have re-purposed this yarn and these beads from an old project. It was from a kit to make a scarf with beads, but I was not happy with it.  I am not a big fan of starting over from "square one" especially when the scarf was more than half done, but now that I've been working on this project for awhile, I am glad I switched gears.  I re-strung all the beads (a big chore!) because the beads had pearly white beads mixed in... and when you used a white bead against the white yarn in a pattern like this (or as in the scarf) it looked as if I made a mistake and missed a bead.

To see the beaded scarf (which is now just a memory), click HERE.