SEASCAPE BAG
This little clutch purse was a quick and easy project. It probably only took an hour to make the bag itself. And then another hour or two to embellish it.
Oh yes, I suppose it took an hour or two to pull out fabrics and threads etc from my stash to audition them for playing a role in my bag. And then another hour to put all the unused stuff back in its proper place and tidy the work area(s).
I suppose I should also add in the time it took to acquire the supplies I used in the project. That would be a little tricky, because some of it has been in my possession for years, just waiting to be acknowledged and given a role!
The bag lining is a piece of cotton waste that was given to me by a friend whose husband brought it home from work, where it had been used to pack round a shipment of something or other.
The backing and border fabric came from Grandmother's Garden Patchwork shop in Hamilton, NZ. The collaged fabrics beneath the tulle are a bit hard to identify, but I do recognise one, a batik, given to me by Catherine, who has a lovely Quilt and Textile Gallery in The Old Post Office in Te Aroha. The blue tulle and the velvet ribbon for the loop were probably acquired from one of the many bags of scraps that people give me when they are having a clean-out. I know I did not buy them. The button is from some Op shop. The underlaid and overlaid threads are from many sources, but I know that the lovely blue/green one is a Colour Streams silk bought by mail order from a Chatswood, Sydney, store, and others were bought from Catherine Byatt, who was selling them on behalf of a friend in Victoria during the Canberra CrazyQuilt Retreat in October 2004.
The lovely leaf-shape beads are from a necklace I bought in Cairns in 2003, the tiny charms are from Peggy at Kaliko Kottage, and the larger shell charm came from a Marine swap the Southerncrosscrazies had last year.The silk ribbon was bought in bulk from Vintage Vogue in the U.S. (by internet) and hand-dyed by me. The other beads and threads from a variety of sources.
Oh yes, finally there is a bit of tatting collaged in with the central bead and embroidery arrangement. This is from a very old hand-tatted doiley I was given by an old lady, who said it had been in her husband's first mother-in-law's things. Parts of it had been torn and weakened by wear and maybe sunlight, so I have dyed little sections of it to incorporate into "arrangements" for added texture.
A simple bag? Goodness me, years of hunter-gathering and foraging, far and wide, have gone into its creation!!