Kelly Rand, director of Hello Craft & a writer for both Crafting a Green World & DCist.com, shares another post for her regular series on the Guest Blog called From the Desk of Kelly Rand.
By guest contributor Kelly Rand
I’ve never really thought all that much about felt. As a crafting material it is inexpensive, easy to work with, and it’s always been in my stash pile. But it’s always played second fiddle, seeming a bit juvenile and relegated to kids crafts.
Kata Golda’s new book Hand-Stitched Felt has me looking at the material in a whole new way. The book features 25 hand-sewn felt projects that are both elegant in their simplicity and super sweet, bordering on saccharin.
The book is homey and laid out with rustic looking illustrations of bunnies, mice, chickens and other such animals. The projects are easy to follow and start you off slow and steady, progressing as the book goes along to a bit more advanced sewing projects. Basic hand-sewing methods and techniques, as well as tools and materials are covered before having you dive in.
Building off of simple shapes, the projects guide you in creating useful felt cases that hold business cards, glasses, papers and journals. Then using the concept of drawing with stitches, the cases can be decorated with small flowers and birds on branches.
Then there are more decorative projects such as framed characters and softies, which are overly cute. These come with templates for you to follow and are firmly in the tooth-achingly sweet category.
My favorite project has to be the patchwork portfolio. It uses several pieces of different colored felt stitched together to create a carrying case for your papers. It might not sound all that special but the construction has a simple elegance complete with a closure that is the perfect icing to the case.
While this project is slightly more complex, it is still rather simple to construct. This is the norm, as each of the projects are laid out to be easy to follow and can be made in about an hour.
Hand-Stitched Felt shows that felt is an inexpensive and easy to work with material that is somewhat juvenile and humble as a material. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Hand-Stitched Felt is published by STC Craft and is available for $19.95.
About the contributor: Kelly Rand is staff writer for DCist.com, lead writer for Crafting a Green World, and is co-founder of Hello Craft, a non-profit trade association dedicated to the advancement of indie crafters and the handmade movement. Kelly is a compulsive knitter and avid maker who believes that handmade will save the world.