Worsted Wednesday - a little felted clutch

To go with a little felted bag, there's a little felted clutch made out of the hood that used to be attached to the sweater. I initially thought this was calling out to be a Kindle or like device cover, but I took a good, hard  look at my almost ballistic commercial case, and decided to nix that idea - insufficient protection along the opening in the event of a drop - and you know if it fell, the least protected side would be the side it landed on, Murphy would make certain of that. I made the mistake of surging the left side, the little red bit in this first photo, closed before felting, so it looks a bit wonky, which some creative blocking took care of. Sort of. It was already mostly closed because it's a hood, there was just that little red it open from being attached to the neck of the sweater. I don't know why I serged before, it's not like it was going to unravel in the second felting.

if you have a too long zipper, run a couple of stitches over it to create a stop where you need one.

Instant custom length zipper.

    

The batting is probably over kill, but I am thinking of any devices that this bag may harbour  such as a mobile phone, mp3 player, camera, et cetera, which may be tossed into the bag with out a protective case. 

a zippy closed side, and a not zippy closed side.

Attaching the flap on the zipper side and...

viola! not bad for a $3 sweater and a pair of ripped bag sale pants.

Now all I need to do is figure out what I did with my magnetic snap closures... I wish I could say I had a pattern for this, but really, I made it up as I went. The lining was very dependent on the size of the felted exterior, as you can see from the pictures, I used the inside exterior as a guide and eye-balled 3/8ths of an inch for the lining. I serged the lining closed, rather than stitch it, so that took care of the 1/4" seam allowance, and since the exterior is a knit and retained a little bit of stretch, not cutting a stringent 1/4" seam allowance around the exterior gave the interior lining a little extra room inside, which the batting later helped fill in. With the addition of the batting, it's a very sturdy little bag.