My first try at a felt bag

[ScarletThistle]

Hi.
Yesterday I made my first attempt at a little bag and I would love to hear your ideas on how I could do better.  
I used a resist which I thought was a little bigger than I wanted the bag to be. I thought allowing for shrinkage it should turn out about right. 
I used NZ wool batt and decorated the front with some sari silk, nepps and curls. 
Here is how it turned out.

www.dropbox.com/t/3ONH1zgJjPsTEnIK

As you can see it is not very evenly sized. It is a bit thicker in places, especially at corners. 
It didn't shrink as much as I expected in width so it's a bit wider than I would have liked. 
I also found it very hard to make the top edges. They are somewhat wavy looking. 

Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated. 

I'm trying dropbox today to try to share my images but I'm not sure if it will work. 

[MTRuth]

Dropbox photos worked fine. Your bag looks good. The evenness of the corners and edges is all due to the wool layout. If the layout is not even, if some areas are thinner than others, then the wool won't shrink evenly. Sometimes when wrapping wool around the resist edges, you will end up with more thickness of layers at the edges as you noticed at the corners. It takes practice to get an even layout. Try to get more thin, even layers, this will work the best instead of less, thicker layers. Overall, I think the bag turned out well.

[ScarletThistle]

Jun 20, 2021 13:46:36 GMT MTRuth said:

Dropbox photos worked fine. Your bag looks good. The evenness of the corners and edges is all due to the wool layout. If the layout is not even, if some areas are thinner than others, then the wool won't shrink evenly. Sometimes when wrapping wool around the resist edges, you will end up with more thickness of layers at the edges as you noticed at the corners. It takes practice to get an even layout. Try to get more thin, even layers, this will work the best instead of less, thicker layers. Overall, I think the bag turned out well.

Thanks,Ruth. That is very helpful. I will try to get my layers more even next time.

[lyn]

Love the colours! Yes, an even layout is important.
Sharp corners are hard to do - perhaps alter the shape of your resist?

This is a link to a simple bag tutorial - as you can see the bottom corners of the resist are rounded.
You may also notice that the top edges of the bag are wavy - don't worry about wavy it can look very appealing.

simple seamless bag

[Ann @ frabjous fabrica]

That is a really good tutorial Lyn. Good clear instructions and answers to anticipated questions included.

[lindsay]

I agree with Lyn and Ruth. The only suggestion I’d add is that it can be helpful to use a strongly coloured towel under your layout as it shows up thin patches more clearly than a light one.

[ScarletThistle]

Jun 21, 2021 6:54:12 GMT lyn said:

Love the colours! Yes, an even layout is important.
Sharp corners are hard to do - perhaps alter the shape of your resist?

This is a link to a simple bag tutorial - as you can see the bottom corners of the resist are rounded.
You may also notice that the top edges of the bag are wavy - don't worry about wavy it can look very appealing.

simple seamless bag

Thanks, for the link. It was very helpful and clear. I like the idea of rounding the bottom. It might be easier than trying to get equal sized corners.

[Shepherdess]

It looks pretty good and I will agree with the other about layout. Ss for shrinkage direction make sure your layers go in different angles. Usually 90 degrees to each other. An even number of layers with give you even shrinkage. If you do un-even layers then the most shrinkage is in the directions of the most layers. Also, shrinkage will happen more in the direction of rolling. So roll in the direction you need to shrink more.

[ScarletThistle]

Jun 22, 2021 13:27:28 GMT Shepherdess said:

It looks pretty good and I will agree with the other about layout. Ss for shrinkage direction make sure your layers go in different angles. Usually 90 degrees to each other. An even number of layers with give you even shrinkage. If you do un-even layers then the most shrinkage is in the directions of the most layers. Also, shrinkage will happen more in the direction of rolling. So roll in the direction you need to shrink more.

Thank you. In this case I used carded batt so, apart from the decorative fibres, there wasn't really any layers. I do think I put too much at the edges and corners and I did try rolling the corners in which helped a little.

[Shepherdess]

It is best to thin out the edges where they overlap so you don't end up with too much fibre there.