Felted Coat Color Block Tote

I've been in love with the Graf & Lantz color block wool totes since I first saw them on Terrain's website. I've never sewn felt or leather before but I decided to give it a go and see if my little sewing machine could handle it. Luckily, there's a thrift store outlet in my area where you can buy unwanted wool coats and bags for $1/ea which makes experimenting basically cost-free. I found an oversized 80's wool herringbone coat, a white wool blazer and a maroon leather brief case for under $5 total. Just look for 100% wool items, the more material, the better. This project is fine for even a beginner at sewing-- I have little to no experience with sewing beyond a blind hem stitch and I was able to figure this out as I went along. The key is going slowly with the leather, especially if you chose a thicker top grain leather like I did.


(disassembling the leather brief case into panels)-- basically just tear it apart at the seams.


(remove all buttons and lining before felting your wool items)

To shrink the fibers of the wool and make the material more durable and thicker you need to felt it. Felting is easy-- stick the garment in the washer on hot water, followed by the dryer on a high heat setting. Warning-- this process is a little messy. I had tiny fuzzballs everywhere so it would help if you had a large mesh garment bag to eliminate the fuzzies in the washer. Don't forget to clean out your lint trap in the dryer after using as it will probably be full of fuzzies when you are done and you don't want your house to burn down next time someone uses the dryer.

My Version:



I left the side seams rough because I liked that look and so far I've been using the bag pretty regularly and the wool has not begun to unravel at all which I think is due to the felting process. Making the leather handles was easy -- just fold a 2" leather strap in half vertically and sew along the edge, leaving a section at the top and bottom unsewn (this will be where it attaches to the bag).

Tripod Lamp DIY

I haven't posted on here for awhile. I've been sort of overwhelmed with DIY projects but in a good way. A few weeks ago I bought a woodslice that I sanded down and now I'm looking for some hairpin legs to repurpose. I'm currently in the middle of making a tufted cushion for a mid-century cedar chest and finally I came across a vintage wooden telescope tripod I've been searching for on Monday.

Some inspiration:

Ethan Allen $536 . Pottery Barn $299 . Macy's $325

My version:

Total cost: $15 lampshade, $2 vintage telescope tripod, $5 cord = 22.00

(Saved some money by reusing the socket and harp from a lamp I was going to discard). I also added using a hacksaw, pipe cutters and wiring a lamp socket to my skill set. There's a great tutorial online for this too, check out this blog post.

Spooktacular Sunday

My friend Veronika came over Sunday and we spent the day flea marketing and getting in touch with our crafty side. I carved a pumpkin for the first time in five years. It was also my first time using a linoleum carving tool. I've seen examples of this technique that I really loved so decided to give it a try myself. It carved really easy but like printmaking, it was tricky to remember which sections would be raised. In the future I would spray paint my pumpkin black before carving. I used a very white jumbo permanent black marker to run over the surface of certain raised designs. You could probably use ink and brayer but I made enough of a mess as it was. My pumpkin took a little over 2 hours.

We also made Halloween wreaths from supplies we found at the local craft store. The black wreath base was 3.99 + 1.00 for skulls + 2.00 for glitter + 3.00 for velvet = about 11.00 total. The spiders and bats were cut from recycled plastic and then covered in glitter and the spider webs were made by using hot glue on tin foil (peels right off).