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Trying To Be Productive

Trying To Be Productive

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I’ve got a craft fair in a couple of weeks, so I’ve been trying to make some new things to take with me. I can never predict what might be popular or sell, so I’ve given up trying to 2nd guess, it just leads to a lot of stock piling up and a lot of disappointment. Instead I decided to concentrate on things I enjoy … with the exception of felted soaps, I’m going to give in and make some, they’re guaranteed to generate interest! Sounds like a plan, ay? Except we’ve been having the most ridiculous heatwave here, so I’ve managed to do very little, unless you count sweating and eating ice cream as being productive 🙂 I did manage to make one new piece of felt though, a ‘seascape’:

And I even managed to turn it into an A5 book cover. This is the front:

And the back:

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

I’ve got both ends sewn so far, so I’ll show it all sewn up next time. I also got as far as choosing some pieces to cut up for piecing together, probably also for book covers, though maybe bags since I bought a load of zips with that intention. I just hate sewing zips!

Any tips for secure closures which doesn’t involve zips or magnets? I’m leaning towards lobster clasps and D rings at the moment. I like delrin clips but making the felt straps is so time consuming.

Book cover

Book cover

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I made a sketch book cover for my daughter for her birthday.

Here is the layout I started with. It is 4 times the length of the book. the background is wet in this picture.

And a close up of the base for the flowers. The stems are some hand spun thick and thin wool yarn. The flowers are some super bright trilobal nylon. to this I added some yarn. I forgot to take a picture of that. I just spiraled it around.  The background is wet while I am adding the decorations. The nylon in particular stays put better when the background is wet.

I was not careful to keep the flowers just so. I wanted some distortion, it is more interesting. Next I made the strap for the back of the book. I like this better than two folded over flaps. It means you can put a wider or thicker  book in more easily. I uses some really pretty dragonfly fabric I picked up at a destash sale at my guild for the strap.

For a closure I sewed on a ring and looped the tail through it.

and lastly a shot of the whole thing.

I hope she likes it. She is quite a good sketcher.

Finished Book Cover

Finished Book Cover

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I finished my book cover.

This is the piece I cut off the end for the one of the inside sleeves. When I used a piece of prefelt for the middle I hadn’t thought of it showing when I cut it. I think next time I would make a separate piece.

Here it is open with the book in it. Don’t look to closely at the stitching. The edge should be zig zaged but my machine will not longer zig zag.

and a close up of the pencil holder

Next time this will go on the outside maybe with a flap over it. It doesn’t allow the book cover to close flat.

This part I thought was quite good. I only sewed the flap down top and bottom so the book cover can slide right through. It makes it easy to insert the book and it means if the next book is a little bigger it will still fit.

and all closed up

The rope could be a little longer but it will work. Over all I like it but I know what I would do differently now. Have you made something for the first time lately?

A Zed Inspired Book Cover

A Zed Inspired Book Cover

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I bought myself a new sketch pad that is in a book form rather then a flip pad. I decided I wanted to cover it in the way that Zed had last shown us here project-updates-2/

I am lazy and wanted to get to the decorating so I started with a piece of white prefelt. I didn’t take a picture of it but you can see it in the picture of attaching the cord farther down. This is the overall piece just wet down.

Here is a closer look at the flowers and the little resist I put in for a pocket. I want to be able to put a pencil eraser nd pencil sharpener in the cover. I used some of my handspun for the stems.

The area with the pocket will be cut off and sewn in to make the sleeve on one side of the book cover.

I flipped it over and started to layout the purple for the inside when I realised I hadn’t added the cord yet.

I made a hole and stuck it in.

Then I decorated the inside of the flap. I am not sure how this will work out but we will see.

Now all I have to do is find time to do the felting and sewing. Not sure where half the summer has gone already. How much felting have you done this summer?

Project Updates

Project Updates

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I remembered today that I haven’t shown the rest of the money purses or the notebook cover I was working on a few weeks ago. These are the purses opened up:

And this is what they look like closed:

I’ve added blanket stitch around all the purses now, but they still need buttons and button-holes. This is how the book cover looks from the front, with a notebook inside:

This is how it looks from the back:

I took a couple of photos without the notebook in, this is what the inside looks like:

And this is the front and back together:

And while I was looking for those photos, I came across some felt I made for another book cover. I wanted a cover with the tie incorporated in the design.

Once I tried the felt on a notebook, I realised it wasn’t quite wide enough, so I made another piece to cut the back cover panel out of:

I’ve only got as far as cutting the felt to size so far.

Felting and Stitching

Felting and Stitching

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Apart from a couple of pieces for notebooks, and the little flowers, I haven’t made much felt lately. I did stitch some felt notebook covers but it’s been so foggy and dark only one of the photos came out 🙁 It was a cover I made from the stripey piece though, and altough both sies looked great, especially once it was trimmed to size, I went for the stripey side:

book coverI remembered another piece I’ve been adding stitching to slowly over the past year or so. I don’t know if you remember when I tried some prefelt sent to me by Heidi Feathers? Well, the silk I’d used on one of the pieces didn’t attach in a couple of places, so I added some stitching, then a bit more, and a bit more, etc! This is it now:

stitchThis is a fairly recent piece, from within the last few months anyway. I wanted it to look ‘scribbley’, like layers of drawing and scribbles.

scribbleyAnd I know I said I’d show you some of the wet felting class nuno flowers when they were made up, but none of them have been yet, but Jo did bring in one of the dry ones she worked on, so this is it layered up while she hunted for a button for the middle:

flower