A little sewing, a little knitting, a little whatsit

I was inspired for this week’s postaweek project to combine knitting with sewing after I was notified that I won this Burda FiberPlay contest . I have already gotten the Laura Zukaite knitting books in the mail, and they are thrilling! I can’t wait to read them more thoroughly and choose a design to work on. The instructions look to be logical, and thank goodness they are all rated as to level of difficulty.  Zukaite explores and explains the process of designing and experimenting with fibers. Excellent food for thought, and more depth than the average knitting book, more focus on high  fashion rather than DIYing. I love all the background info, history, and thought processes of people who feel compelled to work with threads.

This week’s project idea is not new, it’s similar to what I did with the Go Gators! felted wool purse. It is also a purse, but I knitted the purse and strap my very own self!
I started with a couple of skeins of Sensations Angel Hair 22% wool, 50% acrylic, 28% nylon yarn that I got on sale; I wanted to just knit something without a pattern and see where it led me. I tried doing about 5 rows of stockinette and then a row of purl. Somewhere the pattern got boogered up so technically it needed to be shipped to the Island of Misfit Toys, but I persisted.
I found a remnant for the lining, a white-silver lamee piece dated 2005.

Silver lamee remnant

And, never doubting, I found a zipper in my extensive stash that was a good fit, and with plastic teeth.

9" sturdy zipper

I sewed the zipper onto the lining, then seamed the edges, and sewed lining to knit at the edges of the zipper tapes. I had to finish the ends of the zipper with hand-quilting thread, as the machine balked at the angle of the plastic zipper teeth.

Sewing lining with attached zipper to purse opening

Did I mention that the cats love this purse? They can’t get enough of it. Normally I try to keep them out of the sewing room, but they seek out the woolly bully–usually whatever I’m knitting–and ecstatically try to knead it and sniff into digestion its animal essence.

Paulie, wanting a rendezvous with the woolly bully

I had another remnant, a scarf which is the first thing I made when I started knitting again a few months ago. Since it is rather short for a scarf, and not pretty, I did not hesitate to felt it for use as an embellishment.

Heather green wool scarf, before felting

It was felted in the washing machine and dryer once, and then cut and sewn onto the purse.

Knit purse with felted wool decorations

I learned how to make the felted roses from Felt It, Stitch It, Fabulous, an amazingly inspiring book of projects by Kathryn Tidwell Bieber. This red rose was once part of an old wool sweater that I bought at a yard sale. The strap is knitted in seed stitch. The zipper pull fob is a rhinestone ball button from my bead and button collection, applied with thin plastic-coated wire (if you click on the pic you can barely see it sparkling in the upper left of the same-color purse body). You can also see this project at My Studio on the Burdastyle site.

By the way, I finished the top that goes with the remnant Goth skirt from last week. That wonderful Nancy Zieman pattern McCall’s M6247 includes the skirt, this top, a sleeveless shell, pants, and a jacket with a sash. Which belt do you like best?

D-ring self-fabric belt

Bullet belt

Brass brad studded black waist cincher