Raised work velvet bag

Today's bag is a "mini-project" sample for raised work techniques. I have already outlined the design steps in a previous post and this is the result.

For the background we were encouraged to use velvet and I chose a piece I space dyed in our recent dye workshop. Though it was tempting to do this in a green velvet, I decided to veer away from my usual colour choices. I patterned the background with some rather bright painted fusible web. I then couched some space dyed viscose chenille thread and then set about stitching over the fusible web pattern. I chose a random selection of bullion knots, detached button hole stitch, french knots, padded satin stitch, raised cup stitch and woven picots. I cut out the bag pieces after developing the pattern using these instructions for using a curved purse frame. The bag lining was some viscose satin that I space dyed at the same time as the velvet. I wish I had used the heavy sewing interfacing that I used for yesterday's bag as the bag is a bit too floppy (it is stuffed in the picture), but I was worried that the top of the bag would be too bulky to glue into the frame. Ah! isn't hindsight a wonderful thing?

The bag was then edged with some free machine lace edging. This was done separately on soluble film independently to the bag as I didn't want to have to get the bag wet. I had done some edgings integrating the velvet and the soluble fabric, but it is the devil to rinse out thoroughly (and leaves the velvet a little rough and stiff).


So I hand stitched the lacy edging to the bag after a thorough rinsing. Unfortunately the photo does not clearly show the edging but its there (one of the requirements of the sample).

I finished off the bag by attaching a beaded wrist handle. I hand't done any beading for a while but I hoiked out some tigertail and rocaille beads from my stash and treated myself to some glass beads from the hobby-and-craft-shop-I-love-to-loathe. A few blobs of glue, some calotte crimps and a jump ring completed the handle which was attached to the loop on the purse frame.