I made the last of my nuno strip pieces into panels for a bag. It was this yellow piece:
I used various types of fabric–cotton, viscose, silk, suspected silk, so got various textures:
I liked these two strips next to each other, they showed the very different way felting/shrinkage affected them:
I used some of the spare offcuts from the orange piece to make up the panels:
I made the Green felt which I piled with BFL locks into a notebook/diary cover. The pictures look a bit weird because I had a small patch of desk out of the sunlight when I was taking photos, but it must have been shadier at one end so, to me, they look upside down!
Here’s the other side:
This is the inside without the book:
And this is the outside without the book:
I’ve finally got the buttons and buttonholes on nearly all the purses from a few weeks ago, so hopefully, I’ll have those to show next time 🙂
As I announced last month, I am teaching an online class Experimental Screen Printing on Felt beginning January 22nd. You can sign up for the class here. But I am also giving away a free spot in the class for one lucky winner!
To enter the give away for a free class spot leave a comment below. You can get additional entries by sharing this post on social media. Just share on Facebook, your own blog, Twitter, Instagram or wherever you like to socialize online. Then come back here and leave another comment about where you shared the post. You will get one extra entry for every different place you share the give away post. For those of you that have signed up already, if you win, I will refund your payment for the class so just jump right in and try to win. So spread the word and you get more entries! The winner will be announced here on January 14th – post your comment and shares by January 13th on this post only to enter.
I thought you might also like to see what I have made from some of my screen printed felt samples. I made eight different notebooks.
These are all of the different journals. The left column is the front and the right column is the back. But the nice thing about these journals is that you can use either side for front or back. All of the covers are made from felt that has been silk screened with a variety of different methods. You can learn all these methods by taking the online course.
If you are interested in purchasing any of these journals from me, they are $45 US each. You can e-mail me at laneruthe at gmail.com. I can invoice you by Paypal or if you’re in the US, you can call and order one by phone from The Purple Pomegranate on our toll free number 1-866-406-7227.
Here is what the inside of all the notebooks look like. The books inside are blank sketchbooks. The size of the notebook is approximately 6″ x 9″.
Remember to comment on this post to win a free class spot and share it for additional entries. Good Luck!
In celebration of the winter holidays and our fourth year anniversary, we are going to giveaway a bunch of fun stuff. Marilyn, Ann, Zed and I will each give something away over the next 3 months and we will also giveaway a few spots in our online classes. Just to let everyone know, we did change the format of the Wet Felting for Beginners online class so you can take the class at any time, at your convenience and have unlimited access to the course material. So keep your eyes peeled for all the giveaways and let the excitement begin!
For my giveaway, I created a sketchbook or notebook cover that fits a 5 1/2″ x 8″ book. It is removable so once you fill up the sketchbook, you can use it for another book. This includes a sketchbook that is perfect for drawing, making lists, taking notes or whatever you would like to record in it.
It is a felt cover that I screen printed with the deconstructed screen printing method. (I am almost finished creating my online screen printing class if you’d like to learn this method.) I then added some silk paper for flowers and green silk sari ribbons. These were stitched down by machine.
This is the back of the cover.
For the inside flaps, I used cotton fabric that my surface design group painted, stamped, stenciled etc.
And here is the back flap.
So if you would like to win this felt sketchbook cover, leave a comment here on this post. I would really appreciate it if you would share this on Facebook and other social media. The last day you can sign up to win is November 26 (which is Thanksgiving here in the US). I will announce the winner on November 27th. Please make sure that you don’t leave an anonymous comment or I won’t be able to contact you.
Happy Holidays from all of us here at The Felting and Fiber Studio. We really appreciate all of you who comment, participate on the forum, write guest posts and support us in our little venture. We never would have dreamed four years ago that our community of felt and fiber artists would have grown so big with so many countries in the world represented. We are grateful and humbled by your response and support. Thank You!
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 🙂
I thought I’d make myself a felt cover for a ring binder notebook I’ve started using for notes about batts, fibre packs and etsy listings. I made a piece of felt a few weeks ago from merino and embellishment fibre blends. I used lots of different fibres: Milk Protein fibre, Hemp, Flax, Ramie, Banana, Bamboo top and fibre; Viscose top and fibre, Trilobal nylon, Acrylic laps, Plastic fibre and Egyptian cotton. This is the whole piece after felting:
I recently made another notebook and made the straps to go through the Delrin clips from felt, and it looked really nice, so I thought I’d do the same for this one. This is the front:
It took hours to sew (at least 9 episodes of Hawaii Five – 0!) because I machine stitched the straps into place on the back (with my hand operated Singer), and then hand sewed everything else and finished off the edges with blanket stitch.
I left the natural felt edge for the front inside flap.
I cut the back flap to size and used the offcuts for the straps.
I don’t often spend so much time on something for myself, but I’m glad I did, I really like it 🙂
I’m still trying to finish projects and WIPs so I can tidy my summer sewing stuff away. I found an unfinished project from years ago when I was putting some felt offcuts away. Hopefully, this link will show some of the pieces I made, if not search my photostream for ’embellished’. It inspired me to finish it off and make some more. So I had a rummage through my offcuts and found lots of nice ones, so many that I started to think that maybe I wanted to do something a bit bigger, like a notebook cover (surprise, surprise!). I found some thin pieces of felt to use as a base and sewed them together. I really wanted to make something the complete opposite of the carefully measured and carefully and neatly sewn notebook covers I usually make. So after spreading all the felt offcuts out, I got some contrasting sewing thread and set to work attaching the pieces to my felt base. I didn’t expect it to take as long as it did and I got through quite a few episodes of Foyle’s War while I sewed 🙂
When I’d attached all the pieces, I attached a piece of thin blue cotton fabric to hide all the stitching and thread. Then I folded the flaps in, machine stitched them in place, then hand stitched the top and bottom edges. I think you’ll agree, that it’s nothing like what I usually make 🙂 This is the front:
And this is the back:
I tried hard to make sure nothing matched, and that it wasn’t too neat or even, including the top and bottom edges, I just followed the edges of the base felt. This is the cover opened out:
I didn’t attach felt pieces to the base where the flaps would be, I didn’t want it to be too thick. The felt I used for the flaps was originally white merino and cotton which I experimented on with direct dyeing.
I also made a strap closure for it in much the same way as I made the book:
It just fits around the book and clips together with a Delrin clip.
I thought this notebook would stick out like a sore thumb in my etsy shop, but surprisingly it doesn’t. But maybe that’s because it probably has a little offcut from almost every other piece in there with it!
I decided to take the plunge and open an Etsy shop. Don’t worry, that doesn’t mean I’m going to start making sticks with feathers and crystals stuck to them or adding ironic moustaches to all my notebooks 😉 Lyn was telling me that etsy have started doing instant downloads, but it appears to be in the trial stage at the moment. I added a digital download to my shop and applied to join their ‘team’ in the hope I can try it too, but I’m still waiting to hear.
I don’t have much in there at the moment, mostly some silk fibre packs and a felted notebook cover. But on Friday I was having a rummage through my fabric and with 3 large boxes and 5 shoe boxes open and contents all over, I thought it might be nice to put together a fabric sample pack of the different fabrics I used in my e-book. How long could it take? About 20 minutes or so? Ha! 2 hours later I was still cutting and measuring, taking photos, making piles on the floor, standing on the tape measure and almost slicing my neck open, getting sidetracked with a pile of fabric perfect for this, that or the other! And then I had to edit the photos and do the listing. I don’t know how people find the time! Of course, I’m pretty sure my fabric supply is dangerously low now, so I’ll probably have to re-stock 🙂
Yesterday I found a bit of time to go through my box of felt pieces to make things with. I had quite a large piece I’d made with black merino and strips of coloured cotton gauze. The back was blues and greens with silk embellishments. I thought it’d make a nice purse or wallet, with two sections. I’ve almost finished it, I just need to add the button and button hole.
Trying a button:
The back:
I still had quite a big piece of the felt left, so I cut the pieces out for another one:
The other project I found time for was sewing a notebook cover. I made a piece of nuno felt a while back from a patterned pink, green and blue silk scarf. I had always intended to make a notebook cover out of it but really liked it and didn’t want to cut it up! I think time has made it a little easier though 🙂
The texture is really nice:
I had a few ideas for making things with some of the natural white felt pieces I have spare. I started to cut them up, but you’ll have to wait and see what I make from these 🙂
Have you had time for making anything lately or is everyone battling the weather, it seems like half of us are under feet of snow. I’m glad it’s cooled off a bit down under though, only about 32C now in Victoria, Kaz has probably got her woolly jumpers out and the fire on 😉
I used various types of fabric–cotton, viscose, silk, suspected silk, so got various textures:
I liked these two strips next to each other, they showed the very different way felting/shrinkage affected them:
I used some of the spare offcuts from the orange piece to make up the panels:
I made the Green felt which I piled with BFL locks into a notebook/diary cover. The pictures look a bit weird because I had a small patch of desk out of the sunlight when I was taking photos, but it must have been shadier at one end so, to me, they look upside down!
Here’s the other side:
This is the inside without the book:
And this is the outside without the book:
I’ve finally got the buttons and buttonholes on nearly all the purses from a few weeks ago, so hopefully, I’ll have those to show next time 🙂
