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.

String Bag (Crochet)

Crochet String Bag

I visited my sister back in July and I helped get her started on a crochet project. Ever since then, I've been on a bit of a crochet kick myself.  I made the bag pictured above from yarn called Berroco Weekend.  It is a acrylic/cotton blend.

The pattern is from a book called "simple crochet" by Erika Knight. It's a great book; I've made a number of patterns in the book including the Turkish Slippers pictured on the cover (see below).

I am going to be teaching a class on this project at my local knit shop so I wanted to make up a second bag using yarn currently available for purchase at the knit shop.  For the second bag, I used Lily Sugar 'n Cream.  I ended up using about 1 1/2 balls of yarn for the bag. I did add a few extra rows around the handles to make them a little more substantial.  I used the leftover yarn to make a nice dish scrubber.  Here are the bags on display at my local knit shop.  This part of the shop is called "Cotton Corner".  I love it! 

You can see that the bags really stretch out when you place objects inside.  I've made this pattern before using cotton kitchen twine. This kind of bag is great for many uses.  I took my cotton bag to Mexico a few times and it's the perfect bag for carrying sunglasses, sunscreen, and a paperback book to the pool or beach.  You could also use a bag like this to carry your lunch.  The pattern suggests making the bag using multipurpose polypropylene string, which can be found at hardware stores.  My mom called me recently to tell me she had found some polypropylene string in some great colors at her local Dollar Store. I will have to check my local Dollar Store as well, but I do really like the bags made with cotton and cotton/blend yarn.   

More Sewing... Market Bags

I have the sewing bug.  This week, I've been working on some market bags.  I found a pattern on line and the link is here:   http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=177482.0   

My sewing is not stellar but I am learning bits and pieces as I go.  This pattern challenged me in a few spots.  What I found very clever about this project is that you use a plastic bag from the store as a pattern!  I never noticed or paid much attention to the construction of plastic market bags but the handles are doubled up (two layers of plastic) and the sides of the plastic bags have a pleat or gusset so the bags expand a bit to hold more.  These aspects of plastic market bag construction are worked into the fabric version.  I like that the bag is lined which seems to make for a sturdier bag.  The seams are all enclosed so the bags will be easy to launder too. 

I used fabric I have on hand, both cotton. The bright blue pattern has a mottled appearance in person and the lining is tan in color with a cream-coled paisley design.  Now if I can just remember to bring these into the store and use them on a regular basis...  I think I would like to make more market bags; I might search on the internet to see if I can find another pattern to try.