I love felt

I love how felt behaves under the embroidery needle. The layers melt together, and yet they retain a bit of dimension, almost like quilting. I can't stop experimenting with felt, though I only show felt to shops in the cold months. (We've discovered that people don't buy felt applique when it's hot outside. A funny thing.) I made some felt card fronts last winter that were surprisingly popular. This year, I'm doing some felt Christmas ornaments. And I just finished a series of bookmarks that exceeded my expectations.

I try to have at least a few bookmark cards available all the time. One of my B&M stores is the book-and-gift shop in the public library's annex, so bookmarks are big sellers there. I like any kind of twofer (card with a gift attached), like card-with-pin, card-with-button, card-with-Christmas-ornament. Card-with-bookmark was a natural.

Anyway, these felt bookmarks are so touchable--different textures of felt. I have no idea what this design is supposed to be. It was just fun to cut out, fun to embroider. Made good use of my pile of tiny scraps. And I never do the same design twice, so there are a dozen variations on this theme. The size and shape was determined by some blank cards I found on eBay. They're little trifolds with die-cut rectangles on one panel. You trap the bookmark between two of the panels so it shows through the cardfront, and it becomes a long, skinny card with room to write on the third panel. I just need to figure out how to decorate the blank cards to support and not compete with the bookmark colors and designs. Blow-Pens, maybe.