Pink Diary Cover

I managed to finish the diary cover for my sister this week. Last time I posted I'd got as far as making pink batts and choosing the embellishments. I finished the layout the next day.

I wanted to create a feel of lots of different textures, but without it looking like it was 'piled' with embellishments. So after adding the fancy fibres and the cotton, silk, organza and synthetic fabrics, I added wisps of wool that I pulled from the batts. Close up of embellishments:

It took a long time to do the layout, so I didn't get chance to felt it until the next day. This is the piece when I'd just felted it and rinsed it:

I was taking lots of photos of the felting process for a tutorial and I think by repeating some of the steps for photos, I ended up fulling it a lot more than I usually do! It did shrink quite a lot.

Coincidentally, it shrunk width-ways to the exact size I needed for my notebook cover. This is a photo of the pieces cut out: Main piece, the front and back pieces for the closure flap, and the strip to cut two straps.

I didn't have the right colour thread for blanket stitching, so I made my own by splitting some lengths of embroidery floss in half and joining some pinks and lilac shades together. This is the front all finished:

And this is the back:

It does remind me a bit of a toilet roll cosy and I'm sure Barbara Cartland would have loved it, let's just hope my sister does :)

Very Pink!

My sister got me some wool tops for Christmas. Even before I'd seen the colours, I'd decided I'd make her a book cover from whatever she chose, thinking she'd probably choose her favourites. She chose a selection of pinks, not the colours I would have chosen for her, but pinks it is :)  I Picked out some shades I already had that I thought would work with them, I already had a salmon pink, some cerisey purple, reds, maroons and a nice lemon. Then I started to make some batts with my drum carder.

At first I made up some batts without any other fibres blended in, I'll use these for the bottom layer which will be inside the book cover. I split them in half lengthways after I'd made them, then rolled them up.

This is one of the lighter batts before I split it and rolled it:

I used some soy top, viscose, a small amount of banana fibre, black bamboo and dyed silk tops to blend in to make the batts for the top.

I rolled these ones a bit differently:

I picked some fabrics to embellish the surface with, some silk strips, organza, dyed cotton gauze and some synthetic lacey stuff I bought years ago which looks like it might be meant for tying back net curtains. In the 70's :)

I picked a few more embellishments too. Some silk throwster's waste, dyed bamboo fibre, commercial art yarns and fibres taken from unpicked yarns.

I'll show you more pictures when I've started to make it :)

New Year, Old Stuff

I have one more pice that I made just before Christmas that I haven't done anything with yet. I planned it so that the red to purple rainbow stripes in the centre would fit around an A5 notebook, and the stripes at the ends would be the flaps inside. But it didn't shrink enough for that. And isn't quite long enough to fit on an A5 ringbinder.

This is the back:

After the craft fair I made a few more camera cases, it was nice to sit and sew without any pressure of having to get it done by a certain time. These are from a grey merino and grey/pink synthetic fabric nuno piece I made a while ago. Sorry about the odd photos, there was a weird blue light here today.

These are slightly bigger and made from burgundy merino and a kind of tulle synthetic fabric nuno.

I haven't had chance to do much at all lately, I thought I'd have to file my tax returns soon, so have been frantically listing, categorising and printing all week. It turns out the 31st Jan deadline is for the 2012-2013 tax year, which I filed in April last year. I didn't feel silly about that when I phoned up trying to file tax returns 3 months early :)
You might remember a post on the Felting and Fiber Studio site from last year about expanding the felting and fiber community. I just wanted to remind everyone that we are still interested in having guest posts, articles, features etc if anyone would like to contribute to the site? If you'd like an idea of some of the posts others have contributed, hover over  'Community' on the menu bar and you will see the various categories. It doesn't have to be original, it can be something you've used on your own site, as long as it is about felt, fabric, wool or fibres or anything related like threads, tools, farming, production, supplies, selling etc we'd love to include it :)  Use the Contact Form at the top of the site or PM us on the forum.

I thought I'd add a supermacro of locks, just because :)