Felt Name Book

 

These are popular and so much fun!  I really enjoyed picking out the animals to go with each letter of my son's name.  Each page took 2-4 hours but most of that was spent on 'design time' while I tried to decide what to do and how to do it.

Mine is not as elaborate as many versions out there.  I only used felt and embroidery thread.  Many books incorporate buttons, ribbons, rick rack, etc.  Then there is the 'Quiet Book' idea which involves creating amazing activity pages.  I chose to make a simple name book. 

I used free clip art to create patterns for 2 animals but mostly felt that making them myself was easier and much less time consuming.  I have no natural drawing skills, and they turned out alright.  My advice: just wing it!

Here is a picture of a page pre-stitching:

And post-stitching:  Adding decorative stitches made a big difference.  I used two threads for all of the stitching on the pages.

 

I used a little fabric glue to hold the shapes down while stitching or, in some cases, instead of stitching.  Just be aware that fabric glue dries stiff and is DIFFICULT to sew through.  I had to really force the needle through if I had let the glue set.  I learned to only use a little glue and to sew the felt the same day.  If you use a lot or let it dry overnight, you'll have to fight with it a bit.  It was useful for eyes or spots I didn't want to stitch down.

 

 

 

The pages:

 

When the pages were done, I put them in order and whip stitched (simplest stitch!) the backs of consecutive pages together.  I didn't want the backs of the pages with the thread and knots showing.  Originally, I had hoped to be lazy and simply glue the backs of the pages together but my husband saw them without my saying a word about it and said, "That would look really cool hand sewn together."  So I was stuck.  And of course, he was right, I tried gluing a few together, but they look much more finished with the stitching.  Whip stitching around the 4 edges is super fast and mindless and I had them done in the time it took to watch a movie.  (I used 4 threads for the edges.)

 

To create the binding, I put the pages in order and ran a needle with 4 threads through the stitches on the left hand side of each page.  I didn't sew through the pages again, I just ran through the stitches.  I went down all 6 pages and then up all 6 pages catching stitches with the needle. I did this about every half inch down the edge.

 

 

I think this is a fun book and my son likes paging through it looking at the animals.  Baby #2 is due in 3 months and hopefully I'll have his book done before he turns 2!  If the ultrasound tech. had been more confident that I'm having a boy, I'd get started now, but I'd hate to make the wrong name! 

Craft time:  I only worked on this intermittently and not at all while dealing with morning sickness.  I would guess 4 hours per page.
Cost:  Very inexpensive!  Felt pages are often on sale and you can buy thread by the pack.
Age:  Probably 6mths-3yrs