I was commissioned to make an orange bag for the Make Room where I’m selling my designs, and I’ve been struggling to find the time to do it. I did the required charity shop trawl to get fabric a fortnight ago, but my evenings have been filled with housework and exhausted napping on the sofa. Finally, I got a few hours spare to create the bag, and this is the result.

I used an old wool coat to make the main section of the bag, and felted it slightly in the washing machine to make it extra soft and less likely to fray. Then I stitched on the embroidery border from a cotton smock top, and created a flower with a beautiful dip-dyed scarf and a yo-yo in deep orange. I added a polyester satin orange lining, and bamboo handles. I loved the buttons from the coat, so I sewed one of them into the centre of the flower.

It looks like a really easy make, but as I do everything by hand, it actually took a good few frustrating hours. The first lot of handles didn’t work, so I had to take them off and add wider ones so that the bag didn’t sag. However, I’m very pleased with the result, and hope the recipient will be happy!