Hand Felted Bags with Lining - Student Art

My 2nd year 3-D art students just recently finished up these gorgeous felt bags. As always they had to jump through several hoops in the creative process. First of all, they had to make their own felt from raw, hand dyed wool rovings (see Joanna Gleason on side bar for rovings). Then they were required to do some needle felted designs as well as sew on some decorative beads. The most tedious part of the bag was creating and invisible stitching in the inner lining. They had to make their own patterns for everything. These kids possess amazing critical thinking skills to be able to pull the lining off! And lastly they had to put some kind of a closure on the bag so it would stay closed. The bags above belong to from top to bottom, left to right: junior Angeline Tran, senior Christie Connors, senior Alma Gudino, senior Trisha Shah, Alma on the next two, and junior Olivia Hill. Several of these girls I have been working with since they were 7th graders.

The piece above is Trisha's and you can see her needle felted designs as well as her decorative seed beads. And what a great button she found for the closure. Below is her felt right after she had finished making the foundation piece.

Olivia's foundation was my personal favorite. Love the colors and and the movement within the design. And below is a close up of one of Alma's 2 extra credits bags that she was able to make from her one foundation piece. Plus she needle felted the flower and crocheted her strap. Am I a lucky woman to work with these amazing children or what? :)