A good friend of mine has this yahoo group, called melted fabrics, where she sets textiles projects for anyone who'd like to join in. Well this is how the critter bags started, for one project I was making a bag, I can't even remember what project it was for... but I had this new sewing book which talked about finding interesting ways to do pockets. I had this idea that I'd like to have this big pocket, dominating the front of the bag. Now another project was on doll making... I wasn't too sure whether I'd take part in this... dolls aren't really my thing, but I looked around on the internet at sympathy dolls and other quirky doll creations and thought I'd have a go at doing a little monstery type creature.
Then looking at the two projects I got the bright idea that I could put them together, slip the critter into that pocket, let him poke out and wave, let him protect whatever might be carried in the bag. I loved the idea so much that I embarked on making several other critter bags.
I found that using cute little prints for the critters worked that best. And I also had a small stash of vitage printed fabric that I could use for the bags or critters. The rosebud bag and the two other flowery prints are vintage.
This was the first critter bag I made. I loved the rose print fabric and the contrast between that and 'star' the first critter.
And here's a line up of the critters, I actually did a post on live journal on the secret life of a pocket critter, if you're interested it's here.
And here are some of the other critter bags:
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I then went on to make critter notebooks, but I'll do another post sometime on notebooks and gifts... But what developed after that, after many people asking if I did the critter bags in a child's size, were the mini - critter bags : )
To see more detailed pictues of the bags, inside and out, please feel free to visit my site.
