Wednesday, November 21, 2012

It's a Remnant Holiday


If you are like me you will over time accumulate all kinds of craft remnants from previous projects.
For example pieces of felted wool sweaters like those left over from the Katwise coats I made for my kids:


Or little pieces of felt from other projects like the felt leaves from one of my dolls:
So we have: small pieces of wool felt and little cut outs of a felt blend material... obviously that just screams to go together, right!?

Time for a quick and easy felting project! No, not the messy kind with soap and water -needle felting.
Felted wool has such a nice tight, yet elastic texture. It seems perfect for any kind of cover: phone, tablet, e-reader, etc.

And if you know somebody who just tosses their phone in their purse along with keys and other potentially hazardous objects a phone cover may make a nice little gift!

So let's combine:
small pieces of felted wool (a sweater you ruined or leftovers from bigger projects; you can also find wool sweaters for very cheap at thrift stores), small pieces of felt and a needle felting tool (this Clover tool runs about $10)
I cut the sweater pieces with pinking shears -because I want to. Once the sweater is felted you really don't have to worry too much about finishing the edges or unraveling though.

You use a foam mat or a brush to lay your wool piece on and then place your cut out on top. After that you just use the tool to stab the needles through the materials. The barbed needles in the tool pull the fibers through and interlock the cut out with the main piece. Here's the great part: wool on wool is great but as long as one of the pieces is wool it should work.
You will soon see the fibers coming through on the underside. Flip your project and stab the piece from the other side until your ornament (including small parts like the stems or tips of leaves) as sufficiently fused.

Then sew your cover together and voila! you have a super easy small gift. No stitches in front of your touch screen so your item is well protected.

You can get elaborate on this and add a closure to the top if you wish. I like to make my covers fairly tight and then leave them open for easy access.