Tunisian crochet bag - to be felted

[tbird]

Hi all -- I'm taking a break from the Cathedral Window to make a purse for myself, based on the coat of arms of a church in London, St. Bartholomew the Great. You can see the coat of arms here:

 

http://www.precision-guesswork.com/St-Bartholomew-Great

 

I'm using Patons' Classic Wool yarn and a JK-sized Tunisian hook. I've never deliberately felted anything before, but I think it will work really well for this purse. Once that's done, I'll probably add some embroidery to create some of the details in the image, and some beads or other decorations.

 

My progress so far:

 

 

I love Tunisian. It's so ... tidy!

 

I'm also doing a small sample swatch in the gold yarn, to run through the washer and see how it turns out.

 

I'll try to post pictures here as I go. The crowns were the easy bit -- doing the lions is going to be a lot more fiddly.

 

cheers - tbird

[MullersLaneFarm]

It's beautiful so far! Can't wait to see it progress

[tbird]

Man, this has totally sucked my brain out. It was a kind of cool and gloomy day today, very quiet, and all I've done is work on this bag. I'm about half way done with the first lion. I'm glad there wasn't anything else I needed to do today...like dishes...or laundry...or....what was that, hunny? :-)

[yarncat]

Your bag will be stunning!

[tbird]

Thanks! I'm really excited at how it's turning out. I went back last night and cleaned up the second half of the graph, which I'd originally done in a bit of a hurry. I'll post more photos some time today.

[MullersLaneFarm]

Can't wait to see them!

[Stitchinpick]

I am anxious to hear how this turns out. My only worry is that the hook is small. I think I would have used an M or larger. I LOVE tunisian and do lots with it. I have wondered about felting with it, as it would be such smooth fabric, as compared to knobly hdc.

[tbird]

Hi Linda --

 

I did the felting yesterday. I should have taken before and after photos, but I was in too much of a hurry to get working on it. I did a combined strap-and-sides piece in long thin single crochet, with diamonds on it, as well as the front and back pieces in Tunisian.

 

I ran them all through the washer and dryer once. You can still sort of make out the stitches on the Tunisian pieces, but not much, and it's now impossible for it to unravel, of course. I didn't want to risk it shrinking any more by putting it through the process again.

 

The strap was still way too stretchy, though, so I ran it through again. Much better now, but I'm still a bit worried about it stretching all out of shape, so I'm considering several different ways of reinforcing it, from the invisible (run some jewelry wire -- Beadalon -- through the edges so it can't be seen) to the gratuitously decorative (gold and red cording)...I'll see what I think when the bag itself is more sewn together.

 

Pictures later today, really!

 

tbird

[JCB]

How about lining it to keep it from stretching? Just using cording around the edges won't keep the non-corded parts from stretching, and may actually cause the non-corded parts to sag.

 

Can't wait to see the pics.

 

Joan

 

Edited: Ooops! I re-read and see you are more concerned about the strap stretching... disregard my suggestion.

[tbird]

Yeah, as long as I resist the urge to carry bowling balls around, I don't think there's much chance that the bag itself will stretch. I'm having a lot of fun embellishing it, although I'm having horrible procrastination issues with the lions...

[tbird]

Hi all -- I have been *very* under the weather today, so the only thing I've gotten done is decorating this bag. I still feel like roadkill, but the bag looks great.

 

Here's the front:

 

 

I decorated the crowns with red buttons and gold crystals:

 

 

And I went *completely* over the top with the lions:

 

 

After the felting, the bag ended up a little longer and narrower than I'd anticipated, so I decided to make into two separate compartments, with a side zipper for the lower one and a top zipper for the, duh, top.

 

 

I wanted to take the pictures before I sew it together, so you can see the structure on the inside. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

 

cheers - tbird

[Roli]

This looks like a real challenge. So far it is looking perfect. Can't wait to see the finished product!

[mabmama]

Nice work - very creative and shows artistic talent!

[tbird]

:clap :yay

 

Hi Mom!

 

Everyone, this is my Mom! My Mom's on Crochetville! Hurray!!!

 

[angel]

The bag looks great so far, I can't wait to see it finished! (Hi, Mum-of-tbird!)

 

-- Michelle

[MullersLaneFarm]

edited - didn't look at second page before I posted

 

 

BEAUTFUL WORK!!!

[Needle Arts]

I like the addition of the buttons to the crown and love the lion's mane and tail!

[tbird]

**giggles**

 

I totally love the way the lions turned out. Not very fierce, are they? :-)

 

I got it all assembled last night -- I'll get pictures today.

[tbird]

I really couldn't be happier with this

 

Here's the inside of the top compartment, cleverly propped open by my wallet and checkbook:

 

 

and here's the outside (front):

 

 

I just sewed the zippers in by hand, cos that was the easiest way to get them into the right position.

 

 

tbird

[tbird]

There are a few more photos in the Accessories show and tell section:

 

http://www.crochetville.org/forum/showthread.php?t=39372

 

Whee!!!

[C.D.]

This is really nice. I too like the addition of embellishments to make it come alive! Congratulations.

[Riohnna]

I'm eager to see the finished product!

[tbird]

There are photos of the completed bag in this show-and-tell thread:

 

http://www.crochetville.org/forum/showthread.php?t=39372

 

Sorry, I should have added that yesterday!

 

I'm delighted to report that I went to the library yesterday using this for my purse, and it worked very well...and I have the most spiff bag in my little bit of the world

 

tbird