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.

Handmade Felt Book Covers

I tried so many times to get photos of the felt I made for these, but it was either too dark and they didn't come out, or they were weirdly orangey. So, I have no good photos until the pieces were made into covers, even Photoshop couldn't help! This is a cover I made for an A6 address book, I used an old gardening notebook I made for my girlfriend as inspiration. This is the front:

And this is the back, with silk carrier rods:

This is a cover for an A6 address book too, I used some stripey tops I got from wollknoll and some rainbow trilobal nylon:

This is a bigger one, a cover for an A5 diary or notebook. It is Merino and lots of different silk pieces. I can't decide which side I like best, so this is side one:

And this is side two:

Sewing and Bargains

I'm doing another Craft Fair at the beginning of November so I wanted to make a few diary covers. This usually involves my desk getting covered with embroidery threads, and the only exception this time was that I decided to tidy them up too. I made cardboard 'bobbins' for some of them and spent ages untangling and winding and then putting duplicate spares in a bag. Then a couple of days later I decided to clear some more drawers and spread the threads out a bit, make them even tideier and easy to choose. These are all the drawers:

One of the pieces I'm using for a book cover is a piece I made years ago. I wanted to see if I could make a subtle plaid design by laying out bold stripes of colours on my two layers, it was more subtle than I thought, but I like it. I've cut to size and sewn the inside pocket edges so far:

You might remember this next piece from when I tried some commercial pre-felt from Heidi Feathers. The silk hadn't attached in a couple of places so I added blanket stitch, then decided to add some more simple stitching in the blocks of colour. I'm still working on this, and have added a bit more since I took the photo:

I went in to Manchester city centre this week, which I don't often do, so made the most of it looking for bargains. I found a couple of elasticated summer dresses for £1 each so got them because I liked the pattern, they were only tiny though, so once I cut the top off, the bottom was a bit bigger than a pillow case, but well worth £1!

In the same shop (Primark) I treated myself to a 'scarf' because I liked the pattern, it's actually the size of a door!

I saw this scarf in a bargain shop and thought I'd see if it nuno felts well:

And, I couldn't go to town without a trip to Abakhan fabric shop, where I got some more braiding:

And probably the best bargain of the day, I found a roll of silk fabric, down from £10 a metre to £3, so I had to get some :)