Knitted Felted and Embroidered Yellow Paisley Bag

 And now for something completely different; a yellow bag with free-handed paisley pattern.

I've noticed my bags all follow a similar style and themes and wanted to kick myself out of my comfort zone and attempt to do something completely different; paisley. Abstract patterns are not my forte, I have been stretching my imagination to tap into that abstract side of creativity. It's harder than I thought! It's a lot more easy to follow a more concrete idea than fill an empty space with what ever springs to mind. I think I'll stick to less abstract patterns from now on :D

Here's some pictures anyway of the process and the finished bag. As hard as it was it turned out decent enough.

Spring, Sweet Spring!

I am in the mood for spring!
I welcome spring colors with all my heart and in a romantic whimsy created this sweet spring bag. It reminds me off good old times, beautiful old Daher tins and Royal Albert tea cups, which I admit, have been haunting me quite a lot. My collection of beautiful vintage tins is expanding and they have no doubt influenced my work too, it's all so romantic and vintage-y.

It's just funny I should feel like spring.

This is what I see when I look out the window:

But this is what I think I see when I look out the window:

Am I an optimist or what? 

Bird's The Word

Ha! I knew it! After finishing the beige bag I had an idea of embroidering a smaller bird in a little cage in same colors and BRILLIANT; it turned out absolutely gorgeous!

These two bags would go great as a set, for example for mother and daugter, sisters, best friends.

A great weekend indeed, two gorgeous bags finished! :) And now some well deserved PIZZA!

Pink Bird On A Beige Bag

 Oh the sense of accomplishment! Is there any better high than finishing yet another craft, taking a step back to look at what you've created and see it's all good? I bet this is what God felt like after making me, lol!

False modesty aside, I am once again proud of my creation. The handle was a brilliant Etsy-find and suits this bag like a fist in the eye. I need to take some better photos though when the sun comes up, need good ones for Etsy. As you can see here, lighting makes a massive difference. All the process pictures were taken in in different lighting and they are not too good, sorry for that. I'm just so excited about just finishing this bag literally just three minutes ago I can't wait for natural light to share this with you :)

Edit: 28.1.2012 Now available in Etsy

Chirp chirp! The next bag will be same shape but pale pink, and I'm thinking I'll stick with the color scheme and motif, maybe do a bird in a little cage, that might be adorable, what you think?

Tulips, Tulips, Tulips!

It's not yet spring, but it might as well be! With this beauty finished just now it's hard not to feel like spring is again one day closer. Gotta love tulips! The colors are a bit off in the picture, glad it's weekend soon so I can re-shoot this baby with some actual day light :)

Two very different bags finished

I just finished two very different bags. The first in chic, sophisticated colors, the second in bright vivacious shades.

Though they are both beautiful in their own ways, there is no question, which one is my personal favorite. A bag with practically all the colors of the rainbow is just up my alley!

Which style is more your cup of tea? 

Feeling Blue

No matter how many bags I make, every time I start to embroider them I'm at awe at how therapeutic embroidering can be. Honestly, I could sit in a quiet corner for hours on end just embroidering. And believe you me, when ever I get the chance that's exactly what I do. I start off with a bit of Melody Gardot or Chopin flowing in the earphones, maybe some trad jazz even, a coffee cup near by and sit down to start stitching away. Coffee may go cold in the mug, my playlist end, but once I'm in the zone I wont even notice anymore. Once I get going I find my mind resting and heart beat settling, the world fades away and there is only me and my needle left. Making this piece was particularily therapeutic as I have been feeling a bit blue lately with no apparent reason. But with a tad of creativity I turned my blues into beauty. And I think I did a pretty good job.

What's your way to say bye-bye to the blues?

Wreath Bag in Black + a cry for help!

Since the reciever of this beautiful bag has already pre-inspected the work before me wrapping it up for Christmas, I feel free to publish a picture of it here too. Like mentioned earlier in a related post, I struggled with the theme for months. But it turned out magnificient if I may say so myself. I'm so pleased with the design I'm planning to make more of these, have already recieved one order. Only thing missing are the purse frames. I only bought one because I wanted to try it out first. But now I can't find them anywhere anymore!

If anyone happens to know where can I get great value purse frames, please help out :)

I'm looking for:
- purse frames slightly M-shaped (or straight)
- has to be sew-on
- steel color
- foldable handle loops
- plus if it comes with the chain.

Winter Frost Bag

Bring on the snow! Another gorgeous bag finished :)

Make it PINK!

There just isn't anything finer than a nice pink bag :)
Loving the mistletoe-theme so much right now I even combined it with a hot pink bag. And it totally works!Who says Christmas can't be pink?

I like the subtle interpretation of the mistletoe here as it's not too literal. I think I see it now as a mistletoe as I'm so focused on Christmas and all things Christmassy, but I believe come spring I'll just see it as a pretty pink bag with leaves and white pearls. Though hopefully it'll be sold well before spring :)

Happy Finnish Independece Day by the way :)

Delicate Mistletoe

I'm full of Christmas spirit already.
I wonder if I hung this bag up would I get kissed underneath it..
Will definately have to test it at the Christmas shop :)

While waiting for First Snow..

It's supposed to be winter here in Finland. I guess winter is playing hard to get this year as we have not seen a sight of her yet. (I'm guessing winter is a "she", bitter and cold, yet mesmerizing in her fragile beauty.) It would seem she is keeping us on our toes in order to make a grander entrance when we least expect it!

While waiting for her to get her face on, wax her eyebrows or what ever she is doing while we anxiously wait, here's a little something to keep us in the mood for all things snowy and cold.

This little piece was, once again, knitted, felted and embroidered and features a cotton lining and a white zipper and is for sale here.

Sakura Slippers

Konichiwa!

The cherry blossom (sakura) is Japan's unofficial national flower. It is also my official favorite flower. 

It's a delicate flower that blooms only for a very short time. For the Japanese sakura symbolises the transience of life, in other words: life is short, shit happens, not much you can do about that so stop whining.

Life may be short, but as long as you can find beauty in life it's a life worth living. If you're lucky, your daddy ordered a custom pair of pretty slippers for you, so you'll never need to look any further, beauty can literalily be found right under your nose (I mean not right under your nose, unless you're a midget your feet probably are a bit further down..). 

These slippers were made of Novita Huopanen unspun yarn and following the same good old slipper pattern I always use (found in Finnish here and in English as translated by yours truly here).

Domo arigato, Mr Roboto. (Dunno why but I simply had to end the blog post with that. Had to!)

Simple Bag with Heart Embroidery

Most the items in my little Etsy shop are said to be rather pricey. Indeed they might be, but the price does not only include the materials (yarn, embroidery cotton, handles, lining etc) but also the work that goes into these beauties, and believe you me, detailed embroidery does not create itself. I get it that I should have items in my shop that would be a little less valuable too, it makes sense to offer more range in both colors/themes and price tags too.

Lately I've been designing bags with a little less detail, bags of more subtle beauty. Offering items with smaller price tags does not mean to me offering items that are of poor quality, simply beautiful pieces with well thought and simply executed details. If I may say so myself, I think the shape on these bags is pretty in itself, plus I love the rustic texture of fulled wool. Elaborate embellishment is not necessarily needed to make these creations beautiful, the shape and texture itself make them pretty. Keep tuned for more bags of simple elegance..

Apple Blossoms and a Butterfly

 Oooh, finished another bag last night!
It's fairly girly, naive even, but then again, the customer ordering it was 6. Fingers crossed she'll approve!

I really like the apple blossoms, they look so nice against the fuchsia background I'm thinking I might try embroidering something similar on the pink slippers I'm working on next.

I love autumn, it's such a beautiful time of the year but these colors totally make me wish it was spring!

Embroidery Transfers On Felt? Bah!

Iron on transfers pattern from FrenchKnot.com

 As mentioned about a month ago, I received a custom order from a 6 year old. In between working on less demanding projects I've been since thinking how best make what I had been ordered. The thing is, I need to embroider a butterfly. Bugger! Insects aren't my forté. But I found lovely embroidery transfers free online and bought an iron on transfer pencil (2,5€ at Lankamaailma Nordia) and was eager to give it a go. I thought instead of transferring the entire piece I'd test the pencil first with just the butterfly.

 And ta-da; here's a picture of how it turned out:









                                     Did absolutely nothing! :D

Embroidery - Day 1

I had a gut feeling it wouldn't work on felt, but surely it had to be tested. I had been avoiding starting this project in fear of messing up (I put WAY too much pressure on myself when it comes to custom orders) and was rather discouraged and disappointed even though I had predicted it wouldn't work. I tend to get like that, afraid of trying something in fear of failure. But nothing left to do but just face the music and start stitching away!

I was so cynical and so sure nothing would come out of me attempting to free hand a butterfly I was pleasantly surprised when with very little effort I managed to "sketch" out the insect last night!

Today I added a bit of color and will keep working on it before moving on embroidering flowers on the bag, just thought I'd share what I'm working on at present. I think this might just turn out decent enough :)

Wysteria Tree Hangbag

Ooh my my my this one turned out Preeetty!

 It's another bag made of yarn I bought from Kaunas, Lithuania this summer. It's another version of the same basic bag and if I may say so myself, a lovely one! Love the falling flowers and the color combinations!

Blue Meadows Hand Bag

Oooh! Another bag to sell on Etsy :)

Made a really good start, my light green sun glass case was sold only few hours after listing it on Sunday. My first Etsy-sale only 4 days after opening the shop! GO ME! :) I've been spending most my free time researching, reading instructive blogs, commenting on etsy-forums, joining etsy-groups, linking up stuff to my shop and wow, there's a lot that goes into promoting your shop! I know now that I need to a) get more goodies out there b) get more professional photos and c) get the promotion going full steam. Last week alone I joined so many sites to promote my shop I can't even remember them all. All this has been maybe a bit too much, though I'm excited I'm getting stressed too thinking of all the hard work I'll have to put into this to get things going. And when I get stressed I get sick. FEVER! AGAIN! So gotta slow it down and make a plan, not stress too much.. And stop ranting. Definately need to stop ranting and write about the new bag. Get to the point, Sini!

So, long story short, may I present the bag that I finished few days ago: The Blue Meadows Hand Bag. It's GORGEOUS! It's made of yarn I bought from Kaunas in Lithuania, from a little corner shop from a man who didn't speak a word English and served me in German instead. Which was fun since all I remember from German is "ich habe eine hubschrauber in meinem arsch". Try typing that in Google Translater if you're interested in knowing why using that sentence wouldn't have been appropriate. But as I speak fluent Point-And-Nod, I got this beautiful yarn along with a light purple one too.

The bag is again first knitted, then felted in washing machine, and embroidered with this time 5 different color DMC embroidery cotton. I really like these bamboo handles and used one on this one too. But what I really love about this one is how well the colors on the cotton lining go with the embroidery. Perfect match! Or
as we say in my family: "sopii kuin nenä pyllyyn"  - simply translated: "fits like a nose fits a bum hole". Yes. Our family is odd.



Find it in Etsy at Purse with hand embroidered flowers