Shoulder Bag / Hand Bag

I finished the felt bag today, and i'm quite proud of myself, i've made shopping bags and coin purses and some drawstring bags before, but not a proper little handbag! here it is!


I went very much with the shape of the jumper, 'work with what you have', the back of the neck opening was higher than the front and therefore ended up as the flap. To make room for the straps I made the pleats at the front, this also shaped the bag a little, as did the boxing out seams at the bottom (not really visible in the photos). I used the blanket stitch to flatten the seams, which were very bulky due to the thickness of the felt.


I finally decided on these yokes called yo-yos that i've seen on several other craft blogs, i covered the centres with appliqued black felt circles, and added some leaves around the 'blossoms'.


For fastenings i went for velcro strips. I placed them the way I did not by accident but on purpose, it's so that the velcro will catch whether the bag is empty or stuffed to the gills.



And another two pictures of the inside of the bag, i made this little zippered pocket, which i boxed out at the bottom. I went for a satin stitch to attach it, to do with being too lazy to find out which of the mysterious attachments is the zipper foot and therefore getting a wonky seam, covering this up with satin stitch and then discovering that it'll be much easier to continue on with that to attach the whole pocket like that which saves folding the edges under, it makes for a much flatter edge as well (...OK it was very late at night and I had to go to work early the next day...) There's a little strap with a hook for a set of keys, the very thing i tend to lose at the bottom of my bags...

Anyhow, I am very pleased with it overall, and hope that my workmate, who gave me the jumper, will like it too! I told her I'd make something of the jumper and if she'd like it it's hers. Maybe I'm secretly hoping she won't want it...