Felt Bookcovers

I've made a few new felt book covers, recently. First, I made a large seascape in felt:

Then I made it into an A5 bookcover. This is the front:

And the back:

I had a look through my already made felt pieces and found one from a Felting and Fiber Studio challenge which I thought would make a nice A6 cover, so I cut that out:

There's quite a lot of viscose on the orangey yellow part so it has a nice sheen. This is the front:

Not quite so obvious in the photos is the texture near the bottom with silk noil and some cotton fibres. I think I used some dyed cotton nepps too. This is the back:

I'd been making this next notebook cover since January! I had a big clear up and tidied my offcuts, which led to planning the cover. I then sewed some of it in March, and finally finished it last week. Either can be the front or back, so this is side 1:

And side 2:

I used some hand dyed muslin for a backing/lining:

This is how it looks with the front and back opened out:

I still have my offcuts out and plan to make some collage shoulder bags, next.

Experimental Nuno Vessel

Over on the Felting and Fiber Studio site, we have Quarterly Challenges. The 2nd Quarter Challenge for this year was to use fabric as a surface design, and try a technique that you hadn't tried before. Ann made a point of saying I wasn't allowed to make a sample (I do that a lot?!), so I didn't, but it was more of a 'prototype' :) I wanted to combine using 'extreme nuno' that I'd been playing around with a lot, and vessels, so Ann's challenge gave me the push to try it.

I cut out a template, sort of bowl shaped, but not for any reason, I just wanted something big and not square. Then I started adding strips of white fabrics to it: synthetic chiffon, muslin, scrim and cotton gauze. I then added fine layers of Rambouillet. This photo shows it wet down and it's just started to felt:

Once the resist started to curl and I knew it was properly felted, I started to full it on bubble-wrap. It really puffed up!

I removed the resist and carried on fulling, I turned it the right side out, and realised I’d accidentally made a felted cow stomach!

I tested to see if it was fulled enough by inflating a balloon inside, then carried on fulling until I was happy with it. This isn’t the best photo, but you can see the shrinkage, compare it to the first photo - it started out the full height of the netting:

I rinsed it and left on a balloon to shape and dry. This is how it looked finished:

This is another side:

This is some nice ruffley chiffon on the bottom, between some Cotton Gauze and cotton scrim:

And, since the thought behind the idea was that it’d make an interesting lampshade, here it is on a lightbulb:

Close Up:

 And a different angle:

Even though it's just a prototype, I have used it on my little bedroom torch while I've been listening to music before going to sleep!