Wet Felted Handbag

 

     Well, here it is. No, I couldn't wait for my new supplies to come. It was calling to me and I had to answer. Actually, it wasn't a trial at all .. it went very smoothly ... only took a couple hours to make and all day to dry. I had already made the strap before as a rope project so that was ready to roll. The only thing I don't care for is the shape of my fringes .. looks like I cut them out of solid felt ... actually, I almost did .. the red solidifies very quickly and I should have teased them apart earlier than cutting them later. All in all, I rather pleased with this. The surface texture is really nice. 


     I had an email from Louet yesterday too. My order has been shipped but one of the colors is on back order and to follow in another couple of weeks. Hopefully the most of it will be here by next weekend, as well as the Angelina fiber from the states. I'm having my friend Lu out for part of the long weekend and she is interested in seeing how this is done.  That gives us something to do, besides our trip to Masstown in search of Dragon's Breath Blue Cheese.  We have both declared this to be the absolute bomb of blue cheeses. 

     It was quite late last evening but I still wasn't ready to retire for the night so I made this pretty piece of prefelt from some of my needle felting wool and the long stapled yellow which I have no idea what kind of wool it is. That turned out well and was a quick process as it's only half felted. It will be used to make cutouts for embellishments for future bags, etc.  I'm kind of thinking about making a pair of slippers too. I saw a couple of different ways to make the seamless ones, but I don't think I have any leather here for making the soles, so that might be a project for much later on. 


     So, I'm not sure what my projects will be this weekend. I think I'm going to make another bag. Can't decide on the color or style just yet. That decision is going to take another cup of coffee. Have a great weekend everyone ... the sun just came out here and it was supposed to be raining, so all is great in my world. 

If At First, You Don't Succeed .... Try, Try Again

    Not one to be defeated by my own stupid mistakes, I made three more cellphone cases yesterday. I am pleased with these. The dark brown one I made first. I was quite happy, except I didn't have quite enough white on the outside of the fringe of the flap. That was my error on layout. The grey one came next and even though the grey is a very coarse, long staple wool, it worked better than I expected. I was happier with the fringe. 


     I attempted the red wool again. As soon as I wet it, it tried to get away from me again. I have no idea what this wool is .. the staple is short and it's very fine and soft. I'd guess merino, but not sure. I was able to control the wool but you can see this one is a bit wider than the others. A tiny bit of the red solidified and didn't stick on the front so I snipped it off. Not sure what happened there either, except I think it might have folded off initially on the bottom side where I couldn't see it, during the beginning stages. I also dared to cut some holes in the flap with pleasing results. I found out these holes can get a lot larger in a big hurry where the wool is very thin. More valuable knowledge for the data base in my brain. 

     I was really happy with the flame look of the red flap. I don't know what kind of wool the yellow is either. It's a long staple a slightly coarser than the red. I got both at a fabulous price on EBay in large amounts. I imagine it is left overs from the International Day of Felt project quite some time ago as this was themed in red and yellow colors. In any case, it was inexpensive and I have a lot of it. 

     This is the sketch I have ready for my first handbag. I'm waiting on an order of four colors of dyed Corridale top from Louet in Quebec and a sampler of Angelina fibers from the states. Once those treasures arrive, I think I'm ready to dive into handbag production. The little cases were a great experience, but I just fell in love with the handbag concept and can't wait to try it. 

Learning Through Mistakes

     A new case for my Blackberry. If I'd had to grade this project, I'm afraid the mark would have been very disappointing. However, I again learned so much by making the errors. In the first place, this is not the design I was going for. I wanted a seamless case but not this ravioli edge. I know what happened though ... it totally got away from me as soon as I wet it. The reason for this was the material I used for my resist. I used two layers of bubble wrap, bubbles facing, and whip stitched them together. This flattened out the edge of the resist and when I wet it, I had a problem feeling where the edge was. Back to corrugated cardboard. I really worked at it to correct the grossly flattened out edge, but could see I couldn't save it. I didn't do too badly getting the edges straight, but this was disappointing. The second huge error was simply a matter of not paying attention. I got a bit carried away laying out the wool and mistakenly laid a double layer on the flap with no resist up there. I just wasn't thinking as I was getting excited about laying out the spots. 

    The spots are the slices from the bracelets that I had saved for this purpose. Then I laid a few barely there wisps of a long stapled yellow wool over the spots here and there. I lost a couple of spots during the felting process and had to pull one off at the end as it wasn't stuck very well. The best parts were that I made my resist the correct size for shrinkage and the phone fits in perfectly. The fringe turned out really well and I'm thrilled with it's final look. The whole piece is very firm and the flap is stiff as a board and protects the keys so what was a horrible mistake really worked out.  The color is kinda cool too.