Spring bag

 Cutting out

• Cut out:
  • 1 rectangle 45 x 18 cm of pink felt,
  • 1 rectangle 45 x 13 cm of green felt,
  • 1 rectangle 45 x 7 cm of ocre yellow felt,
  • 2 strips 45 x 2,5 cm of pink and ocre yellow felt,
  • 2 pieces of ocre yellow felt 8 x 2 cm.

Flowers

• At every 5 cm draw perpendicular lines from the longest side:
  • 1 line 13 cm,
  • 1 line 7 cm and so on until there are 8 lines.

• Draw on little marks off the lines which show the position of the leaves (4 on the long lines, 2 on the small ones).

• Draw the flowers: 5 petals evenly distributed around the flower center.

• Embroider the shorter lines in green sparkly cotton with a backstich.

• Embroider all the leaves (even the leaves on non-embroidered lines) with ribbon stitches with the green ribbon.

• Make a notted dot for the center of the flowers, and stich on pink ribbon.

• Put a strip of ocre yellow on the top of the reverse side above the pink felt.

• Do a running stitch with the sparkly pink cotton, the length of the upper edge.

• Place the green strip on the reverse side, below the pink felt, passing over the ocre yellow felt by 2 cm.

• Fix in place with pins.

• Flip over your work so far, and now embroider the longer lines for the flower stems, using a backstitch, in sparkly green cotton.

NB : keep the pink petals and the green leaves together to create pockets.

Putting it together

• Overlay the two shorter sides of the work so far by approximately 0.7 cm in order to create a circle.

• Keep in place with pins and sew a running stitch in pink sparkly cotton.

• Measure the outer diameter of the bag (14.7 cm in the example) and cut out a circle of the required dimensions in green felt.

• Sew the circle to the work with a blanket stitch to make the base of the bag.

• Avancez point par point, en mettant bord à bord les morceaux de feutrine.

Strap and clasp

• Sew together the long pink and ocre yellow strips with a running stitch for the strap.

• Fix the handle arms with pearl buttons on each side seam of the bag.

• Now for the clasp, sew together the  8 x 2 cm pieces with a running stitch.

• Sew onto the ends of the clasp with a pearl button  to the top of the bag.

• Sew the other button to the other side of the bag.

• Cut the button hole into the clasp (using a blanket stitch to hold the two layers of felt) and button.

  

Finishing touches

• To reinforce the bottom of the bag, measure the inside diameter of the bag (13.8 in the example).

• Cut out a circle with this diametre in thick cardboard.

• Cut out another circle in the ocre yellow felt.

• Glue this piece onto the thick cardboard.

• Put the circle into the bottom of the bag.