Red lemur bag!

This bag was dreamt up as an entry for the Morsbag forum's Animal morsbag competition. Life got in the way, and I hadn't even started it when the competition finished. It didn't stop me making it anyway... after all, I'd already sketched it out and chosen the fabrics!


And here's the sketch. After cutting out the red fluffy bits for the sides of the face, I realised how unevenly sized they were... just like in the sketch! Something to remember if you just plan on enlarging & cutting out a hand-sketched pattern without thinking about it too much. Make sure it's right first!

Why a Lemur? I wanted to do something red and fluffy, as I have a stash of bright red fake fur. I was originally going to make an orang-outang bag, but after looking at many cute photos, I settled on a red lemur instead.

Shared under a cc-by license
{source: photojenni}

Something about those eyes!

I started by making the face out of felt. I then cut out each layer of the body and blanket stitched everything together (with a trip of orange felt between the edges of body pieces to make them stand out a little more).

This furry felty lemur was quite heavy, and I was worried that the bag would hang to one side and sag at the front. Especially since the spotty fabric was old thin stuff I'd picked up at the local op-shop! This was exacerbated by the fact that the design had it sitting to one side of the bag (so that the tail could be the handle! Yay!). I ended modifying the original Morsbag pattern by adding a layer of bamboo batting & lining it with more spotty fabric inside. It doesn't hang lopsidedly at all.

I think the end result is part cute, part craftastrophe... Suffice to say, it doesn't see the outside of the house much! We hang it off a doorknob to keep all our other cloth shopping bags in and to startle unsuspecting guests!

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