It’s not often when I start something that I don’t know what it will be when I get going.  So this Hand Felted Norwegian Wool Cork  sketchpad project has a bit of a back story to get into.

Quite often I let my Birthday pass me by without much of a celebration, even more so now that my daughters is 4 days away from mine. Hers will always end up being more special than mine.  So to counteract it this year I decided that I wanted to do something for me.  Learn a new skill.  There is a local wool shop to me Artisan and I go in and marvel at all the pretty colours but as a sewist they don’t normally have much for me.   This was where I decided to celebrate my birthday.

With my Mum!  We booked a day Welt Felting session with Libby to make our own piece of flat felt.  It was brilliant getting to work through the process, adding layer of lovely colourful Norwegian wool bit after bit.  I didn’t really have plan in place of what I wanted to create and choose Autumnal colours to create a swirly abstract piece of felt.  Here is my felt mid creation:

I took the felt home to ponder its fate.  I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to display it or make it into something.  A decision I sat on for a little while.  Meanwhile Somewhere else I was playing with cork fabric and thought how wonderfully natural it felt.  I paired it up with my wool felt and really loved how they looked together, I also thought that my felt piece had 4 strong corners.  I decided that splitting it up and creating something useful.  A note pad holder was my first thought, using a fabric to line inside and bind it so that a note-book could be inserted.

It was when I walked past my bookshelf upstairs for the umpteenth time that I noticed an old leather-bound sketchbook that I had bought from a London market many years ago.  I took it down and was disappointed to see that the leather had got worn and mouldy and even more disappointingly was that I hadn’t even used it.  Inside though were perfectly kept pads of handmade paper in perfect condition that I could repurpose for this project.

It was a good find to find again!  The whole effect feels and looks natural, the hand felted Norwegian wool, the soft flexible colourful cork bound in with hand made effect paper, sewn up by hand with a simple running stitch.  It all just feels and smells lovely.  The perfect sketchpad.  It just makes you want to sketch!

The whole process for these Hand Felted Norwegian Wool Cork sketchpads have been a dream and I have enjoyed working with all these new materials.  I’ll be heading back to Artisan in the future to buy supplies to make more felt pieces. For now though you might be wondering where the 4th corner is?   Well I only had enough cork to make 3 books so I have a spare piece of felt to work with in my future.  I can’t wait.

These Hand Felted Norwegian Wool Cork sketchpads are listed in my etsy shop if you are interested in a purchase?