First Felted Sweater Purse

I keep hearing/reading about these felted projects made from shrunken wool. I don't know how to knit (yet) so I thought I'd try shrinking a thrift sweater and see what I could come up with. I stopped at Goodwill last week and found a purple American Eagle sweater that was 100% wool, and a fuzzy lime green angora sweater from another company that I've already forgotten. The purple and green looked pretty good together, which was lucky because these were the only two sweaters I found that had the right content. The sweaters have to be all animal hair (no acrylic or polyester) to felt properly. I washed them on the smallest cycle in hot water with just a tad of liquid detergent, and never let the machine go to spin (I read the spin cycle could cause the fabric to get creases in it, although there seems to be differing opinions here.) I air dried them on towels, which took about 4 days. In retrospect I think drying them in the dryer would have been fine for this project. If you want a certain shape for the felted object, it has to air dry with wadded up plastic bags or some other mold inside it.
So anyway, I decided to make a purse. The handles are made from pieces of the sleeves, and of course the bag itself came from the sweater "torso". I cut leaves from the green sweater for decoration.



The fun part was remembering some embroidery stitches I haven't used in about 10 years. I actually enjoyed the stitching and decorating the outside of the bag.



For the lining I chose a quilting fabric that matched both the green and the purple. Plus it had a lavender in it that made a nice accent color. I just happened to have some buttons in the lavender color which was handy.
Despite my pitiful sewing skills and and fact that I had no pattern, I think it turned out pretty well. I like it enough that I might make more. Too bad I start teaching tomorrow night. Two jobs leave little time for crafts. :(