Nuno and Bamboo

I found time last week to make a notebook cover from the bright flowery nuno piece I recently made. The finished felt piece turned out bigger than I'd expected and I did play with the idea of making a passport style shoulder bag. Maybe if I'd had a nice button or some Delrin clips I would have, but in the end I thought a book cover would look nice. This is the front:

And this is the back:

I usually leave the natural felt edges on the inside front flap, but when I worked out the best position of the felt for the cover, it ended up on the inside back :

So the 'neat' cut edge is on the inside of the front.

I've been mostly working on some ideas using natural wools and fibres recently. As much as I like nuno and brightly coloured Merino, the natural shades of wools and fibres and the different textures and properties of the wools and fibres and how they work together is a bit of an obsession for me :) I made a few pieces with different bamboo fibres this week. Some were just samples as I worked out the crinkles of ideas and played with the fibres to get the look I want. This is a sample piece I made using black bamboo blended with black merino:

This piece worked out just how I imagined and wanted it. It's 18.5 mic Merino with bamboo staple fibre for subtle shiny texture:

What have you been working on lately?

Slow Sewing

I had a comment on my previous post from Ali (Random Wooliness) about my nice blanket stitching (thank you!) and that I must have 'oodles of patience' :) The truth is I have dodgy vision, my eyes flicker and get worse with patterns or when I concentrate, so I have to sew really slowly and kind of  'slide' the needle across the felt for each stitch, as trying to poke it through in the right place would have me there all day with shaky hands and vibrating eyes :)  I have managed to get another couple of projects finished though. Last year I made a piece of rainbow coloured felt, made with merino blended with crimped nylon I'd dyed myself.

I really liked this piece, it feels really nice, kind of 'spongy'. And has a really interesting texture to it, and it almost looks like it's still damp if that makes sense? Well, I measured it and it was the perfect size for making a notebook cover, and I got to keep the natural edges too. This is it all sewn up before putting a notebook inside.

 I decided the orangey side would be the front.

And the greeny side the back:

It's a shame the back of the felt on the inside won't be seen, I liked the way that turned out too:

I mentioned in my last post that I used the blue flowery piece of nuno from my e-book for making camera cases. I managed to get one of those sewn up too. Is it just me, or does everyone who makes things want to keep them all? Is that really narcissistic? :)

I did put them both on etsy (in GBP at last, thanks Deborah I was being so dense about that), but if anyone buys them, don't be surprised if I've 'lost' them ... just kidding!! :)