Blues and Greens

These are the blue and green nuno pieces I made using fabric strips a few weeks ago. I tried to include a wide range of colours as well as various fabrics. This one was a mix of blue, purple, green and turquoise:

The two viscose pieces either side of this silk chiffon have great ripples, the chiffon just sunk in. It's one of my favourite fabrics, from a dress I got at a charity shop and didn't realise was silk until I used it and saw how it sunk in, and went back to search for the label.

I've noticed that some fabrics attach better if they are in the middle or aren't too close to the edge. I'll try a sample with just this thick blue scarf piece at the end, and see if it attaches better not so close to the edge.

All the fabrics I used on this piece were silk or strongly suspected of being silk:

It looks much better close up, and on an angle – the lighter pieces seem to reflect light a lot:

You can see the textures better too:

I think I made the strips a bit too long on the green piece, a few of these didn't attach well along the edge, even though the rest of the pieces did. I usually try to make sure I work on edges, so I don't know why it happens sometimes:

Slightly closer:

I did think I'd probably make one mostly blue bag and one mostly green, but once the strips were cut up and moved around to see which others they looked best with, it didn't work out  like that! Also, being conscious of how bags wear more on the back, picking pieces to work best there also influenced the final outcome. These are the two panels I made for my next bag:

I have to remember to take photos of it sewn up for next time!

More Nuno, More Sewing

One thing I realised when I was making the bag I showed last time is that I was running out of offcuts. So decided to make some more. I suppose technically they're not offcuts if I make them with the intention of cutting into strips, but you know what I mean :) I made a few different coloured nuno felt pieces:

I loved the variety of textures I got from using different fabrics on the orange piece:

The red piece was made with all silk pieces:

This is a corner of the red piece with sunlight on it:

Before I got too attached to the pieces, I cut them all up into strips:

I made a mistake with some of them, because some pieces weren't very wide. I should have left them 'whole' instead of cutting the strip in half like I did the others. I started with the red and orange strips, and matched up some pieces, it turned out some of the purple strips worked well to so I used some of them. I made them into a passport style shoulder bag. I made this side as the front:

I made the back to match, but different enough that it can be reversed for a different look:

It's not very easy to see, but I finished the bottom of the strap off with some wooden beads.