Bags! Bags! Bags!

For the first time ever, I saw someone else felting. Not only that, it was Andrea Graham, felting genius. I essentially study her blog every week and wonder how she does what she does, so I took advantage of living an hour from New England Felting Supply and participated in a workshop of hers titled bags with three dimensional elements. The week before the class, I decided to gear up by making a bag of my own. Since I already have so many bags, I decided to make one of my favorite accessories seen in Mexico, the bag-belt hybrid. They seem so convenient, never falling off of your shoulders, waiting patiently with their contents so close to your hands. I think the most important lesson I learned in this attempt is to lay it out more carefully. The belt spread out when I wet it down, making it longer and thinner. No matter how I pummeled this bag, it has remained stubbornly three inches too big for me. I made this bag all in one go, belt and pouches, but I learned tactics in the class for making the straps (or belt in this case) separately and felting them in this project would have also allowed for more control in the end size. I do like the effect of the jewelry embellishments, it's a multilayer necklace embedded in one of the straps.



The class was a wonderful whirlwind of bag technique instruction that I can now practice at my leisure. I had been planning on making it for a friend to be determined later, but wound up liking it so much that I kept it for myself, and its quickly become my go to bag. I was really excited that the technique for making little bubbles and nests on the surface of bags was revealed within the first five minutes of the class. I have read in felting books that the technique for seamless felting is to lay out one side, wet it out, and then lay out the other side, i don't like trying to lay out the dry wool in the presence of wet wool, so I've always disregarded this advice. The class taught me the proper technique for laying out one side at a time which does involve a finessed flip at one point. It also results in much stronger, more even sides.




Emboldened with my new knowledge, I set out to make a knife bag for Ismail. It ended up being only one layer of resists, because the bag rolls up for closure, but is is six resists that had to be accurately sized. I took home his knives and cut the resists to 1.5 times their size in length and width. I embedded them in layers of Corriedale and Pelsull wool, turned on This American Life, and felted away.



Two episodes later I was ready to start shrinking.



I had to be really careful not to slice the bag or my fingers. Actually, when cutting the hole to tie the strap in, my scissors couldn't make the cut so I used one of the ultra sharp knives and sliced the corner right off, as well as a piece of my finger. The bag rolls up nice and tight through, and unfurls nicely to reveal the knives. I'll make one for myself once I have a respectable knife collection of my own.


I attached a handle along with the wrap around cord to make the whole thing easy to carry.