Category Archives: felt

Spotted: Kawaii felt no komonotachi

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In the early stages of this blog, I was talking about felt stuffies and how you can make really cute things with felt (and sometimes useful stuff too!). This book is a perfect example of adorable felt stuff. They have actually quite a number of books here about felt or felted wool stuffies, but I don’t find so many that really appeal to me. But things in this one are sooooo cute! There is a reason why there is the word “kawaii” (= cute) in the title. I almost brought it home with me the moment I looked inside. I didn’t because of you-have-to-be-reasonable reasons, but I’m still considering it.

The cover is a good indication of the styles of the items. No realistic animals, but cute big eyed ones. It’s been quite a long time since it was released (sorry I’m late!) so I do not remember everything, but I think there were many animals and also some cute little characters (fairytale inspired?). There were also some pouches and small bags. You can see one of the fringe bags on the cover. I don’t personnaly like the fringe, but it can be an inspiration for other bags. Also some flowers that you can see on the cover. I just went to check the Amazon page, and you can see a few pictures of the inside of the book there.

I thing this book can be really useful if you like to work with felt to create cute non-realistic things. It can serve as pattern but also as inspiration. The patterns are given of course. If my memory doesn’t trick me I think some of them have to be enlarged but most are the right size. ISBN n°978-4418092192.

Tutorial links: felt stuffies

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To follow up on the previous post, I’d like to share a few links I collected about felt stuffies. First, here is a link I found very useful, on how to choose a stitch for hand sewing felt (with links to detailed pages about those stitches): http://www.futuregirl.com/craft_blog/2007/10/choosing-stitch-for-hand-sewing.aspx.

And here is a list of nice tutorials I found for felt stuffies:- Sasha the seahorse- Supercute Sea Creatures- Sigmund the octopus (I started one months ago, but sadly he’s not finished)- Buche de Noel: part 1, part 2 (I wanted to do one for Christmas, bought the material, but didn’t have time to do it… next year maybe?)- Bonhomme en pain d’épice (French)- coeur décoratif (French)

And what about you? Do you know any good tutorial on the subject you’d like to share? I’d love to discover new interesting ideas. :)

Felt decorations

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As I said before, I’ll show you some older projects while I don’t have new ones to share. Here are two felt decorations I made for Christmas. They were both intended as gifts, but I ended up keeping the star since I wasn’t so happy with it: the felt is damaged, it seems it wasn’t washable as I had been told… :s

Both have been hand sewn and hand embroidered. I decided to start learning embroidery last year, and I love it! I haven’t done much yet, so I’m really a beginner, but it’s very pleasant. I find hand sewing and embroidery very soothing. Hand sewing being much slower than machine sewing though, I generally use my machine. So I really appreciate hand embroidery (complex machine embroidery is definitely out of my reach at the moment! ^^; ). And what I like is that even very simple embroidery can really change a project from really basic to pretty. You don’t have to be an embroidery master to make lovely things, anyone can do it (yes, even you!).

Those were my first felt stuffies (and actually first stuffies ever, felt or not). I’m more used to using fabric rather than felt. But it’s really nice for that kind of small decorative objects! I’m sure I’ll use it again in the future. Maybe in the near future, since I have some ideas for summer decoration. It’s very easy to use, you just have to be patient and methodical in order to have nice stitches and stuff it correctly. And in the end you get cute little objects! Just an advice: carefully check whether your felt is washable or not. And if it is, wash it before use, as I’ve heard felt can shrink a lot when washed. I always wash fabric before using it.