Handmade Felt Book Cover Project
This Handmade Felt Book-Cover Project really does have everything you need to know to make a unique felt book cover from Start to Finish, even if you have never tried wet felting before. It is a 59 page e-book in PDF format. There are 8 main sections, a small Introduction and a section at the end with a few tips.
The first section ‘Planning the layout’ explains how to work out the shrinkage rate from a sample piece of felt, and calculate measurements to account for shrinkage. There’s a small section about measuring the notebook you want to make a cover for, and adding on extra for making a flap closure and straps.
The section on ‘Preparation’ talks about the equipment that is necessary for making a flat piece of felt and other items which are really useful, and a few other things that will make the layout and felting stages easier. No ‘specialist’ equipment is necessary, and nothing expensive; I re-use and recycle where possible.
The sections ‘Laying out a piece of flat felt’ and ‘The felting process’ have lots of colour photos and information about laying out wool tops neatly and evenly; positioning embellishments; wetting, rubbing, rolling and fulling the felt; and how to get neat edges, so that even the most inexperienced felter should feel confident enough to try this.
The ‘Cutting out’ and ‘Sewing the notebook’ sections have lots of photos and tips for making sure your cover, flaps and straps are cut to the right size, sewn up and attached in the right position. And for anyone who hasn’t tried blanket stitching before, or those who need a refresher (or some of us, like me, who need to be reminded how to start no matter how often we do it!) there is a section about sewing two pieces of felt together – for the edges of the cover; and also attaching one piece of felt on top of another – for sewing the flap and straps to the cover.
The ‘Tips’ section at the end has some alternate ideas for using a variety of colour shades on your top layer, how to identify the front and back of a delrin clip, tips for customising embroidery floss, and some suggestions for alternative closures if you want to try something different.
Although this is a complete project to make a cover like the one pictured, it is simple enough to omit some of the steps and just make a plain book cover without the closure.