Fail-ted Bag Win!

So, mama always said, "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade." I am not a huge fan of tired, cliche adages, but this one is worth something, or at least applicable here.

This bag started as a laptop case, then evolved into a tote. When I felted it, the dimensions were all wrong; it was a complete catastrophe. In other words, it was "fail-ted". I don't have any pictures of its ugly duckling phase, mostly because I didn't want any photographic evidence.

I had pretty much written it off by this point, but it continued to haunt me.

Slowly, over the course of several weeks, I began to get ideas about how I could fix it.

When I attempted another felted bag (you can see it here) with only slightly better results, I dug this one out to finish it, and hopefully get some gratification.

I cut the excess material off of the top of the bag, then cut it into strips to use for the handles. The flower was also made from the excess, by cutting out the petals and hand sewing them on.

And voila! My personal fail-ted bag win, or The Lemonade Tote.