Needle Felted Sunflower Journal Cover - Part 2

Inspired to Journal

My second project on my Babylock Embellisher was this journal cover. Wouldn't this bright, sunny journal cover inspire you to start journaling?

I started with a felt base and used orange silk dupioni for the sunflower centers. The leaves were felted with various yarns and wool roving. The textured background was acheived by felting with hand-dyed scrim and roving. Metallic threads were added along with metallic acrylic paint.

The side borders were felted with orange silk dupioni and yarn. Further details were added with the hand-embroidered fly stitch and buttonhole stitch. The gold-dotted circles were made with gold metallic acrylic paint. Then all the edges were embroidered using the chain stitch.

Here's a closeup of the flowers. My inspiration started with this feathery, variegated yarn -- with yellow, oranges and pinks. I wasn't certain if I could machine needle felt just the edge of the yarn, but it was easy. I wanted to leave the feathery edges loose as if these were the petals. I free-motion stitched with metallic thread on the sewing machine and lightly painted around the flowers with metallic gold acrylic paint to create movement.

Don't miss the needle felting and other tips below.

My sunflower cover journal was placed on a hand-bound Japanese book filled with hand-made textured paper. I gave it to my daughter as inspiration during her trip to Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia.

Tips: What is scrim?

Srim is very inexpensive and is usually found in the home decor section of fabric stores. It is a very loose weave, has texture of cheesecloth only stiffer and comes in white and natural. Scrim is often used for ghostly effects as theater backdrops.

I bought five yards of white scrim and then hand dyed them -- sounds like I spent a lot of time doing this. No, not at all. I shredded the fabric into piece about 1/2 yard each, went outside with a box, then used Simply Spray to dye them. Simply spray is a fabric dye in a spray bottle, no mixing, no fuss and dries quickly. Just read the directions and follow them closely and consider the purpose of your project -- like wearable art. I used pink, yellow, red, orange and blue. You can spray a lot or a little, vivid colors and tye-dye. Then I hung the individual pieces of fabric to dry over a line used to secure our lawn canopy.

What's great about machine needle felting with scrim is that the loose weave of the fabric breaks up easily and the distressing effects are very textural.

Another tip when machine needle felting -- felt the back of the peice as well as the front. The pieces I've shown in these two posts are tightly felted, but you can loosely felt areas leaving a "bubble" effect. I'm demonstrate this effect mroe in another blog.

I so enjoy sharing this with you -- Inspiration stirs my soul! So leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Love to all of you and God Bless, Terri

For more inspiration, please join our party hosts at:

Beverly for Pink Saturday

Karen for Sew Darn Crafty

Courtney for Feathered Nest Friday

Cindy for Show & Tell Friday

4 Comments

Beautiful!

Posted by: Tricia | 09/02/2011 at 09:20 PM

HI Terri
Return visit from Cat 'n Cart Crafts Blog. Love your Journal Cover, we must be on the same wavelength, I just printed some Santa's on fabric to make some Christmas book covers .. come back and visit again in a couple of days to see mine ...I have never heard of needle felting with scrim - looks fantastic
Judy

Posted by: JOHNSTON Judith | 09/02/2011 at 11:02 PM

Hi Terri,

Thanks so much for your visit and kind comments on my sewing collage. I love arranging my stuff and then photographing it.

I love needlefelting and I own the Janome Expression machine. Aren't the machines a blast? Thanks for the info on the scrim and on that spray dye. Is it permanent dye or will it wash out. I'll have to go read about it.

Come by anytime...
Pink Sparkles,
Stephanie Suzanne ♥

Posted by: Stephanie Suzanne~Queen of Dreamsz | 09/02/2011 at 11:06 PM