The little girl's puppy purse

While the shirt may have had a bit of a setback (drafted new sleeve and armhole this afternoon though) my other project came off beautifully! One of the books I got with my Christmas Fishpond book voucher was Kata Golda's Hand-Stitched Felt. I'd had it on my wishlist for ages, after reading a great review of it on Heather Ross' blog. There was also this very cute little video for it



The book arrived on Thursday and since I was doing some babysitting for a friend that night I cut out the felt to do the Little Girl's Puppy Purse and sewed it up while I was out. I even managed to forget the book and it still came together without instructions and I had plenty of time to watch lots of really bad tv. Seriously easy project! And very cute



Hazel loves it, mostly for the puppy I think. She's fascinated by the fact that one of its ears flops



The only thing I regret about not having the book with me while making it was the puppy placement, mine is all square and centred, the book's is on an angle and looks a bit more playful. That's so me though, everything all lined up and squared away ;)

Most of the other projects in the book look like they'd be as quick and easy as this one - it's all hand-sewing and simple stitches. Nothing fancy here! Several of the projects are guaranteed to send small (and larger) girls into transports of cute, but there are lots of home decor and personal items like glasses cases, mug cosies etc. for the grownups :) My only quibble with this, and I'm not even sure if it's a legit one, is that part of the reason the projects look so gorgeous is her lovely felt, which the books says is available from her website, but in reality it's only as kitsets for the projects and they're fairly pricey. Found out that her felt comes from OhMa Felt and you can buy by the piece. You can get nice felt pieces from other sources, but it's not cheap even in that form and some of these projects call for a fair amount, making them potentially very expensive. I think that if you were going to get serious about having a set of large felt buckets then either you learn to felt your own wool, or you go with cheaper non-handmade versions. This purse was made from a thin blended felt and I doubt it will last for long as the handles will eventually stretch out. Still, it's perfect for carrying around little things, which is what Hazel's all about these days :)