Thursday, April 22, 2010

There she goes again with the "felt" and now she's talking about rainbow trees? This woman's a loon.

In my own obsessive compulsive way, I find myself heavy in the thoughts of felt.  Felt this, felt that...felt, felt, felt, felt!

Awhile back I ordered some felt online to play with.  Just to get a feel for what sewing with it would be like.  That crazy Martha Stewart had a pattern for a "shopper" type bag that was a free download so I thought that might be a quick, easy way to start.  I am all about the instant gratification.  It's terrible.


Some other breaking news,  I love color.  I obsess about color.  I color coordinate the books on my shelves.  And since the felt I purchased was just plain ol' green I decided it needed some jazzing up.



So I sketched out a tree and started cutting out some leaves.  Traced those little fellers onto the felt with a fabric pencil (I've secretly always wanted to use my fabric pencil but never seemed to find a reason.)


Cut the trunk out of some brown cotton, leaving an allowance so I could fold the edges.


With an Exacto knife, I carefully cut out each of the leaves.  Felt cuts beautifully with an Exacto knife, especially if it's a new blade.  Now I have a bunch of little leaf pieces that I can use for another project.  Lord knows I DON'T THROW ANYTHING AWAY!


Pinned the tree onto the bag and sewed it.  Added some free sewing details to the trunk to give it some character.  Then got busy sewing the leaves.  I placed each piece of fabric from my color spectrum behind the cut outs and sewed them on top.  I'm a pretty good multi-tasker but once I started sewing I stopped photographing.  I struggle with doing both!



TA DA!  The finished product.  It's a rainbow tree.  It turned out great.  Coulda just made a plain green shopper but NO.....had to take it up a notch.  It will be a great book bag for the library books or  a reusable grocery bag.    It will definitely get used.


And btw, Happy Earth Day!

7 comments:

  1. holy moly. what a great bag! i'm sure folks will stop you to ask about it...
    k

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  2. very impressive. ;) I really can't beleive that you made that. so cool.

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  3. I LOVE THE BAG! I LOVE THE RAINBOW, the TREE, the COLOR!!! this is remarkable! good job!!!

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  4. nice! I never check out Martha's pattern although I should. I used to subscribe to her mag and my mother has even gone as far as saying that I was really Martha Stewart's daughter and not hers. My kooky mom.
    But the leaves are great and the tree even looks a little quilted. Very cool. I need to learn how to work a sewing machine better. Want more craft trees in my future too!

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  5. This turned out great! I just love the tree motif, and the way you used the colors for the leaves. Take care.

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  6. Cool bag!!! I could only wish to be that creative!

    I'm going to go in search of Martha's download. Do you remember where you ordered your felt?

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  7. Seriously beautiful! LOVE it.

    Jen, remember how you always leave me nice, supportive comments? Remember how I said I was going to reward you for your goodness?

    THE TIME HAS COME! Please go to my etsy shop and pick out your daughter's hair, eyes, skin tone, etc. and email me with these. I will send a PDF custom MiniME paper doll complete with 16 outfits your way.

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Thanks Carol@ Songberries