Some weeks ago, Roy and I decided to try our hand at finger-knitting. Finger-knitting had become very popular at school, but the problem that most of the children found they had, was what exactly to do with the end product. Roy and I discovered you could knit a serviceable skipping rope or a pot stand from a thick rope of finger-knitting (to read this post click here), but the children still wanted more ideas. So, Roy and I thought about what else we could do with our finger-knitting when we hit upon this wonderful idea for a colourful, fun bag. So this week, Roy creates a snail bag!
You Will Need:
- 1 finger-knitted pot stand. Roy made one of these in his previous post. You can find the instructions for making it here.
- A pencil and paper.
- A plain, calico shopping bag
- Lead pencil
- Grey paint, slightly thinned with water and a paintbrush
- A piece of cardboard or a wad of newspaper
- Grey embroidery cotton, to match the grey paint
- A needle
- 2 small matching buttons
- 1 sew on googly eye (or another button if you can't get a googly eye)
- Thread to match your finger-knitting
- Optional: A big button and a short piece of plaited wool.
Method:
- Using your pencil and paper, draw a snail body (or a slug, whichever is easier). Sit the round piece of finger-knitting in the centre as a 'shell' and use this to judge what size you need to make it. If you need a bit of help with your snail drawing, you could use the snail paper craft at the 'first school' site as inspiration.
- Cut your snail body out and position it on your bag, checking again with the shell to make sure it looks right. Trace around it with pencil.
- Put a piece of cardboard or newspaper inside your bag (this will stop your paint going through and colouring the other side of the bag)
- Using the grey paint, colour in your snail's body. You don't need to worry about colouring in the shell area - this will be hidden by your finger-knitting.
- Leave your snail body to dry.
- Iron the bag with a hot, dry iron to more securely fix the paint in place.
- When the snail body is dry, divide the grey embroidery cotton. Embroidery cotton comes with six strands all wound together but you only want to use two of these strands for your sewing. Carefully separate two strands from the embroidery cotton.
- Now, use small running stitches to outline the snail's body. If you need to learn how to do running stitch visit an online stitch guide by clicking here.
- Slip stitch the finger-knitting to the bag to hold the shell in place. If you want to use the finger-knitting as a pocket, leave an opening at the top of the snail shell.To learn how to slip stitch, click here.
- Sew your small buttons onto the tips of the snail's antennae.
- Sew the eye onto the snail.
- Optional: If you want to use the snail shell as a pocket, sew a large button to the inside of the finger-knitting. Then, plait a short piece of wool, leaving a long tail at each end. Working from the outside of the bag, use a wool needle to pull each of the tails through the bag and to the inside. Then, tie the tails together securely. Use the loop of plaited wool to 'do up' the button!
- Enjoy your bag!