So when I started my collection I asked a few of my peers (and my very out-there work study supervisor) how they felt about a purse made of lacquered feathers. It was met first by confusion, then intrigue, then finally after some thought, a hearty "Yes! Do it!" So I embarked on stalking eBay for bird feathers. I decided on macaw parrots as they naturally have the greens and blues so prevalent in my collection. I found a great deal on sets of 50 (thanks to
kcvpjulie) and set out to make a feathered bag. I already had hollow clamshell purse frames in my possession and I also needed to make the "shells". My professor suggested using buckram (a glue-covered woven fabric that's used in hat-making to create the shape of my bag. I found buckram alone to be too flimsy- but backed with oak tag (a heavy paperboard) I found the shape and sturdiness to be quite pleasing. It ended up looking like this:
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| buckram frame |
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| from the inside |
From there I had to practice my "wrapping" technique", which still isn't amazing, but using feathers to cover the fabric helped. But for the prototype bag I wanted it to look fairly nice as I wanted to use it as a functional bag.
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| Finished product |
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| side view |
Alas I struggled with the lining of the bag, the inside is a literal hot mess; in fact i realized this morning its coming apart in places (you have to glue the lining to the frame). I'm hoping the glue I'm about to use for the final works better.
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| See? ugh. The vent came out nice though. |
FINAL BAG TIME!
This is still a work in progress as I'm working on it as I type. All that's left is the lining. I made the bag in between the mini power outages courtesy of that evil storm Sandy. Good thing I brought the materials home too as I was in DC 2 days longer than planned.
I would do a step by step walk through but that would make this post suuuuuper long, so I won't. I did everything I showed above, except I glued feathers to the fabric before covering the buckram shells and popping them into the frames. Final product:
Voila!
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| FLASH! AHHHH! |
[Lacquered] Feather Clutch
(At one point in testing I actually DID lacquer the feathers, but I didn't like how it made the feathers look, but you get the idea)
I plan to do cost sheets for everything I make in this class so I know how much to charge for if I open an online shop post graduation.
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