My precious...

Since I began diving into the concept of making purses to sell, I came up with an idea to make a bag that combined my love for bags, my love for "conversational pieces" type of bags, and my love for Sudoku. When I came up with the idea of a Sudoku bag, the few people that I shared it with thought it was a great idea. Off I went to create the bag but I didn't realize how long of a journey it would be.

I began experimenting with felt, since it was easy and cheap to work with and didn't have raw edges to clean up. The idea worked for a bit... up until I got to the numbers. For those of you that don't know, one Sudoku puzzle consists of 81 numbers. I could not find felted numbers in the size I needed so I attempted to hand cut them. Big mistake. After barely making enough to fill a box within the puzzle grid, I did some research to find a cutting device.

Enter the Cricut machine. I shelled out the most money that I have spent on one item in a long time and began testing it out with felt I purchased for the numbers. After browsing the fabric store for other purse related items, I came across a material better than felt. The fake leather material was even better than what I originally started with and with my new machine, I was able to cut out perfect size numbers.

The grid was easy to make but the task of adhering numbers to the grid and the loose numbers to Velcro was daunting. After trying out glue and glue gun, I found fusible webbing. Now, with my new found missing adhesive, I'm so close to completing an idea two years in the making. It will be my most labor intensive and precious collection to date.

Fusible webbing

One day, while doing some Christmas shopping, a light bulb turned on for one of my on going projects. I've been in the works for creating a new collection for a couple of years now and I am slowly gather skills, equipment, and ideas to make this new collection come to life. It dawned on me that I needed a material, like a sheet with double sides of adhesive. I called the fabric store and described my request and low and behold, fusible webbing.

I just picked up a yard to play with so let's all hope that it works. Oh, the joys of experimenting!