Sweater Books

Ok, so I was inspired to create some more wool ideas I had rolling around in my head. I love my little hooked flowers but wanted to do more with them. Not everyone wants to wear flower pins, so I decided how about a journal? I love journals, making them, looking at them, holding them, writing/art journaling in them and have I a good collection....many, many are filled and of course some partially filled. I decided a long time ago that partially filled books were absolutely fine. Why stress about filling them up, especially in a linear fashion? No doubt I have many journals filled. I also keep little sketch books of ideas and illustrations I collect along the way. Blah, blah, blah.....

So back to my inspired day, yesterday. I wanted to do something with some old sweaters I had grabbed from the Salvation Army last year, which I felted and then stashed on my fabric shelf. I knew these flowers needed a fabric background if they were to be used on a book cover. I came up with the coziest little Sweater Journals, which I adore. I used blank index cards for the pages and recycled boards from old legal pads, etc. (yes, I save them) for the book board. I had to paint the edge of the board to match the sweater and choose a inside wool for lining. Then needle felted the stems from my stash of wool roving, that I bought from a fellow Etsian PrimnProper, it was a huge bag of roving filled with many colors that I got on sale for under $10.00! I then punched out my book board and index cards using the Bind-it-All machine by Zutter, and sewed my sweaters onto the boards, just around the edges. Then I trimmed the edges and bound the book and adhered my cute wool flowers. And yes there are imperfections in the sewing.....more wonk, like I do so well. Well let's just say 'perfectly imperfect'.

So, get out your old abandoned wool sweaters, felt them and make Sweater Books.