Embroidery Project – Small Snail Purse/Bag with Vintage Snail Embroidery, Vintage Transfer Part 1

What happens when I get distracted and an idea burns it’s way through my creative soul? Answer: I cannot rest until I at least solve the puzzle of ‘how’ it ‘could’ come to fruition! I am going to let you into my thought processes while tackling design.

The Small Snail Purse…a puzzle in the making.

*I’ll tell you how I ended up finding these cute little snails if you promise not to get lost clicking all the links until AFTER reading this entire post. 😉 I know…I’ve been lost in this path too. Stay with me until the end, then go exploring. Be prepared to be at your computer for a while!)*

There is a great Flickr Group, Hoop Love Vintage Transfers, which boasts, yes, you guessed it, Vintage Embroidery Transfers. I happened upon them while designing my Flowers for the Summer Creativity Challenge over at Yahoo Group Hand-Embroidery. I followed the links at those sites to their Group Blog and ended up over at a blog called Stitchy Britches. Oh, how I got lost over there clicking on all kinds of things and ended up over at Hoop Love Vintage Transfers.

Amongst many other vintage embroidery patterns, there were these. Days of the Week Snails. I think they may be Aunt Martha’s Iron On Transfers, but I am really not sure. Now, I had no intentions of touching these patterns. Really, I didn’t. But…

I kept looking at this piece of fabric I bought on a whim…way before even discovering the pattern collection. I’ve been staring at it wondering what it is that I could do with it. Well…doesn’t the design look like…uh…snail shells?!

Together: Snails. Snail shells. A perfect match! Now, what to do to make this somehow pull together?

At the same time this “light bulb” went off about the snail like fabric, I had been reading blogs via my Google Reader. Sue, of Berkshire Cottage is on my blog reader and an entry caught my eye. It is about Sue’s adorable Japanese Knot Bag. I had to follow links from her blog to finally get to a pdf file with the pattern by Helen at Show Your Workings. I think the bag is really cute! And…who doesn’t NEED another bag, right?

I got to thinking…the snails…the bag…they would work well together!

Well, I am just so set to present most of the projects here on my blog in a way that ANYONE can attempt them. I am determined to use affordable fabrics to prove that anyone, even in these times of economic crisis, can find some mental health enjoyment in embroidery and creativity. And what better, than good old economy felt! I’ve already worked with it for several projects and it hasn’t failed me yet. (The snail fabric, by the way is 1 Fat Quarter that I bought at my Ben Franklin Crafts for $2.99 less a 10% discount.)

Here, I’ve dug out some matching blue, pink and green felt.

And for the snails themselves, why not good old bright white to transfer to and use a little ‘photo’s’ of snails across my little bag?! I reduced the size of the snails to the “wallet” option with my printer wizard. They are 2.5″x3″. I love to work in miniature. It’s handy, it’s inexpensive, it fits everywhere and you don’t run out of room quickly!

The problem so far: Here is the pattern. The felt turned wide, is not tall enough for the entire pattern, turned tall is not wide enough for the entire pattern. What to do?

Well, no one said we HAVE to make it out of ONE ENTIRE complete fabric, right? I mean, there are millions of Quilters out there that cut huge sheets of fabric up into tiny pieces to sew them back together again to form bigger sheets of fabric, so why not a little adaption of the sort for the felt and this purse pattern?

Solution: Here is the green, turned wide. Why not add a blue, say, for ‘sky’ on top of the green to accommodate the handles of the bag? We will have to piece and sew the felt together to create a new larger sheet of felt. Then, we can place the entire pattern on the new felt sheet. (That comes later, we are just in the “Idea” mode right now remember.)

Here, we see the green and blue of the ‘bag body’. Let’s add some of the pink in for a maximum contrast accent. Maybe the pink can be a ‘frame’ or border around the little snail ‘photos’. You can see the little snail on the white fabric, bordered by the bright pink. Several of the snails should fit around the little bag like little snapshots of them, the green giving the illusion of grass, the blue giving the illusion of sky.

Here it is all together with the snail like fabric for the lining. Can you see it? Think it will work?

I really enjoy this process of creation. I have a lot of fun gathering the parts and letting the ideas flow like this.

I can finally rest my mind a bit and while setting this up also go back to my Summer Challenge Flowers. I usually have many projects running at once. It’s a good thing these are snails and won’t be moving very quickly. They won’t mind the wait.

Your life needs fun. Go ahead, have some fun!

———–Helpful Information———

Find Flickr Group Hoop Love Vintage Transfers (Click Here)

Find Yahoo!Group Hand Embroidery (Click Here)

Find Hand Embroidery Group Blog (Click Here)

Find Hand Embroidery Group Summer Creativity Challenge (Click Here)

Find Stitchy Britches Blog (Click Here)

Find Sue of Berkshire Cottage (Click Here)

Find Helen of Show Your Workings (Japanese Knot Bag Tutorial) (Click Here)