Tutorial: Adjustable shoulder strap (aka recycling a felted bag)

There's an unused felted bag (from Lamb's pride worsted weight) that I never used. The opening was too wide and the strap too thin to work as a shoulder bag, so I thought it might work better as a messenger bag.

Materials needed:

2 D-rings (sized according to the strap and slider width)
slider (a rectangular ring with a middle bar)
nylon webbing (this was for a child, so it was around 42 inches)

The single strap was snipped off leaving about 2 inches which was sewn around a D ring. For a regular bag, use two 4-inch pieces of webbing (see here).




With one end of the strap, loop around the middle bar. Fold under the edge (to prevent fraying) and sew. With the sewn loop facing down, string the strap through a D-ring (starting from inside the bag to the outside) and and weave under and over the middle bar.




Loop through the other D-ring, fold under the edge and sew.




A messenger bag that can be converted to a shoulder bag. This will be my daughter's new library bag. Felted bags are great for books -- slightly waterproof and extremely durable with a bit of stretch.