Sarah Appleton - Textile Artist Blog

  Continuing my pop art kinda theme from earlier, this is my super special amazing spectacular whatever-else-I-said bag I made for myself! I am kind of in love with it! It was inspired by the cover of the Purple Knif Show , and also this dress . Maybe my bag needs more slime and other flair, I'm not sure if it's the kind of project that could ever have 'too much going on', but I have to admit that the slime was kind of a pain to make, and therefore more detail would have probably led to me throwing my sewing machine out the living room window. I left the slime free to dangle because I am super into Interactive Art that you can slap people with at psychedelic discos. With the CD cover that inspired it! Fwends! I used the Cramps logo stencil from Stencil Punks and it turned out really cool after a few painstaking hours cutting all the wobbly lines out. Worth it! Aaaand I made a pocket out of contrasting pink zebra fabric - the first pocket I've ever made so...

I've recently hit some tough times finance-wise, so seeing as I'm such a huge fabric hoarder I've started working my way through my archive pile of fabric to avoid buying any more and to spend time crafting inside instead of spending money outside. I finally decided to make a bag from this cotton flannel fabric - a regular square tote bag seemed too boring so I knocked this up based on a shape I've seen in Matalan in the past! Not bad considering that I was sick as a dead dog with a virus that day - I even managed to line it! The fabric was from The Fabric Fairy (as always), although I think I got the last couple of yards. Turns out flannel isn't the strongest or most ideal fabric for making a bag; it's best to sew around the seams a few times for extra strength or the fabric will stretch and fray very easily. Or maybe I was just carrying too many beers in my bag that day... It also tends to bobble and grow a lint layer very quickly. Oh well, it's g...