Felted bag using recycled purse closures

Hello. Glad you could make it. I hope spring has sprung where you are. Yesterday we got more snow which is melting again now in the afternoon sun.

Today I have a second felted bag to show you. For this one I recycled the magnetic closure from an old purse that had its day. Some time ago I realized the old closures and other hardware can be recycled from purses. Now I cut out all the magnetic closures and anything else that can be reused. This includes the straps, pieces of the material and the zippers. Anything can be recycled with a bit of imagination.

The body of the bag was knitted and the strap was made with a French knitter. The magnetic closure's tabs were opened with the edge of a butter knife. Use the top edge so as not to ruin the working edge. They can be hard to open. I used my thumb nail to push it up enough, when necessary, to give the knife blade room to get underneath. Then once they were in place I used my hammer to slowly push them closed again.

The finished bag.

Close up to show how fuzz it is.

The magnetic clasp.

I just cut them out and save them for a later project.

This shows how they are attached.

And this shows them once I worked them apart.

To hide the clasp I found a big button from my (huge) collection to sew over it. I was going to add some embellishments but decided against it for this one.

This is one of my French knitters. I've had it for over 30 years.

I hope this inspires you to try out ideas of your own. I welcome any comments or questions. I'd love to hear from you.