I have been doing a lot of traveling lately. Being a competition groomer, means that I take long trips to these trade shows, and I spend a good portion of the weeks leading up to it, preparing dogs and making sure they are all cleaned and they are packed for the weekend adventure a head of us. So that makes it a bit hard to finish projects. It made me think though. Since I had a good amount of down time between dogs, I had some time to felt, but didn’t take any of my things with me. So I’m on a seek for a good bag to take things with, and I also came up with an idea for a travel needle cushion. Oh and in case you were wondering, I took first place in poodles entry.
To start, my brother in law brought back a couple of note pads from his trip to Mexico. They had this wood covers, and I thought those would be perfect. They were sturdy enough to keep the book shape and stop anything from bending. So I took them off the spiral bound they were on and measured out some pre-felted sheets to make sure I knew what my canvas size was going to be. I later found, I should have left room for the padding for the needles, but I made due.
After I made my design, I sewed the back piece on so that it would pocket the wooden covers. I was nervous about this, because I’ve never sewn before. But I’m actually pretty proud of how it came out. I left the inside of the front cover open, because I want to get some magnets to hold the two covers together.
Doing the back, I used the spiral holes to help secure the magnetic clasp that’s going to hold the two covers together. So I worked the top closed and then made sure the wooden cover was exactly where I wanted it, and I sewed it all in. I completed all four sides on the back, and decided to take out the padding on this side, because it wouldn’t close right. I just need to work the clasp now. I would like to felt in some of the color of the front cover so it matches in pretty well. But I’ll save that for later. For now I like where it is, until I have some magnets to get in there, I can’t actually finish it off.
I really like it. Especially since this is my first time work with a 2-d felting project and my first time sewing something together. I gave it a test today, and my needles made it with me to our destination and back, without needing to constantly pack up. I can also use the book as a needle cushion, I made sure to add enough padding so I could stick them in there when I took a break or needed to set my needle down. Now that I’ve kind of adventured with my tools, I think I can start to do the dogs that I’ve been wanting to do. I’ll need to experiment with wool tops and do a bit more reading for the different types of wool I could use for the coats. I might play with batting, practice sculpting in shapes and what not. I also need to order eyes and probably noses for the dogs. But I need to figure out what’s a good size for those.
A bit more research, and I think I’ll have my first dog done.
