"Sampler" Needle-Case

Felted needle-case with beads...

...sari silk waste and sari silk ribbon.

With the ribbon closure tied...front side...

...and back side.

Green felt pages (left-overs from my 'couture jacket')...

...sewn in with bead accents.

While I was in Michigan for the Creative Felt Gathering...

...I took a little time on our 'free afternoon' just to play around with wool.

One of my fellow students had a lovely felted needle-case with her...

...and I thought that it would be a quick and fun project to try!

There were also several felting techniques that I'd been dying to attempt...

...so I decided to incorporate them all into one case, like an old-fashioned 'sampler'!! :)

My friend, Kim often felts ribbon or lace into her felt...

...and then uses it as a tie closure.

My friend, Nicola uses beads, threaded onto a narrow piece of roving...

...to felt beads into a project without sewing.

And my friend, Pam, who was, luckily, also present at the CFG...

...stitches beads to the 'fold lines' of her finished needle cases...

...to prettily hold the pages in place.

I cut a small foam resist and covered it with layers of wool roving...

...then added strips of sari silk, holding them in place with wisps of wool.

(If you wet the strips of silk first, it helps to flatten them out for proper placement.)

I found a needle that would fit, easily, through the holes in my beads...

...then threaded it with a thin strand of wool roving, and pulled beads onto the fiber.

I laid these out onto the project surface, along with some sari silk waste...

...and began felting.

I treated this project like a  mini-bookcover...

...but cut a slit, instead of an oval, in order to remove the resist.

I cut pages of finished felt to fit the case...

...and attached them with bead accents placed on the inside and outside of the case.

As it was a 'sampler', I wasn't too concerned with design or element placement this time...

...but it did give me a good idea about how to use these techniques in the future!