Thursday, March 21, 2013

Hand-Dyed Two-Layer Purse- Part 1 of 2

Laying out strips of re-purposed silk...

...(from thrift store blouses)...

 
...and covering them with merino roving.

 
After flipping the resist to side two...

...I can check on my design through the plastic. :)

 
Adding layers of wool, a thin plastic resist and cotton gauze...

...for an internal pocket.



After felting for a time...

..the resist is removed. 


As you can see, the silk strips were quite tightly woven...

...and 'did not want' to felt-in without additional work on my part.
 
The internal pocket, after felting.

 
Cutting the felt to remove the thin plastic pocket resist.

 

This is one of my experimental 'flub and rescue' projects. :)

After seeing a cute, narrow purse in a museum gift shop in Hamburg in December...

...I got the idea of making a long, narrow resist...

...covering it with a scant amount of roving (to make thin, flexible felt)...

...and then tucking half of it inside the bag, to act as its own lining!

After felting the piece for a short time with the resist in place...

...I removed it, only to find that my silk strips were far from felted-in.

Because I wasn't wholly invested in the look of the embellishments...

...and because sometimes I just want to move along with a project...

(This is spelled L-A-Z-Y) 

...I yanked them all off and finished felting the now totally white bag.

Next time: how a white bag becomes the perfect canvas for another idea...

...and how the dyeing style of one friend...

...and the dyeing technique of another...

...save the day!! :)

Posted by Picasa

9 comments:

Rachel said...

Maybe you could weave the silk strips and interleave them with the merino? Hard to do, but might produce interesting results...

Jeany said...

It startsagain total cool with those stripes! You're style totaly, I 'm enjoying the next stepp allready!

Heather Woollove said...

Rachel--What an intriguing idea!
Janine--I do love stripes, but since I removed them on this one, you'll have to wait a bit to see the other striped one that I made! :)

Unknown said...

I love those pockets you make. I'm going to try that myself.
I know, sometimes it is hard to make the silk stick to the wool, especially when the silk is thick. You will have to use woolroving on top of the silk to hold it together.
I'm curious to see what colour your bag is going to be.
Grt.Mattie

chris said...

I have been following your blog for a few weeks (busy dipping into the past posts). I love that you post the things that don't work out too! I have a few that did not make it to my blog! I am inspired, thank you, and look forward to the plan "B" version!
Chris

Heather Woollove said...

Mattie--You're absolutely right...my silk additions projects always do better with a 'veiling' of wool...
but I made a bag (which you haven't yet seen) with
organza stripes that felted in so beautifully, I got a little careless! :)
Chris--Welcome! Hahaha...yes...this is a 'warts and all' kind of blog! :)

Melissa Plank said...

The bold stripes looked great, but they would not cooperate, naughty! Into the corner to think about their behavior, lol! I have every confidence that part two will be amazing, can hardly wait!

Vivian said...

The silk stripes have great contrast to the wool background. I once knitted silk ribbons into a wool sweater for a designer, definitely an interesting and striking combination.

Heather Woollove said...

Melissa-Oh, how you make me laugh! You, my friend are good for the soul!
Vivian-Never fear...there is a silk strip purse coming up (which I actually made before this one!), but it's a gift and I can't show it, yet.