So, as I described over at my other blog, on Thursday last I went to the first in a two part class at Busy Bees on how to make a beautiful felt embroidered bag.  Normally I do quilt classes there but I like the fact that they also run these associated needlework courses.  The bag was made from a lovely piece of rather gorgeous felt, in a rich cerise colour.  It was difficult to choose a colour, as there were so many lovely ones, and I was not familiar with working or stitching on this type of surface.  In the class, we were shown how to make a simple template for our bag, then cut out the felt and the batting and glued these together.  Very simple so far! Then came the fun part - embroidery.  Sandra, our wonderful tutor gathered us round, and demonstrated a variety of stitches to us.  Each of us had been given a practice piece of felt and batting to work with and I was using a new type of thread to me, perle, space dyed in lovely bright shades, and much chunkier needles than I am used to using for my cross stitch.  It was lovely to sit round in a circle with Sandra teaching us, making our first faltering attempts and Sandra kindly showing us again and again so patiently and cheerfully what to do.  The class was full of laughter and smiles as we got to grips with our new stitches, and I was amazed when it was half past twelve and time to go.  Sandra had equipped us with the ideas and tools to decorate our bags so our job was to to go home and wield our needles, and do the decorative stitching before returning next week, to make a handle, sew the bag together and add a fastening.  

On getting home, I realised that I needed to practice some of the new stitches and had an idea.  I bought some felt at the local craft store, and cut out some Christmas ornament shapes using a template from a card making goody bag.  My Crop a dile punched a hole in the top for a ribbon, and added a decorative hole finisher (never sure of the right word for these!).  Then I did little rows of stitching and added pretty gold and coloured seed beads to give twinkle and dimension.  The effect was pretty and festive and I liked it, although I need to keep practicing. 

The pics attached show the finished festive ornaments and the bag in the various stages as stitching and then beading was added.