A fabric company sent me some free samples (?), small pieces of felt. I decided to use them to make a book/wallet for organising hand sewing needles.
The only thing left is to add some kind of closure, probably hand-stitched at this point. The two options that come to mind are: a length of cord with a knot at the end; or a button on the front cover and loop on the back cover.
Felt sheets (at least 1 piece)
Cover panel: a little larger than the felt sheet (anywhere from 1/4" to 1" larger, all around)
Bias tape binding (I used 20mm single fold)
Optional pocket panel (same width as cover, can be same height or taller)
Optional fusible interfacing
To draft the book's cover, I traced the felt and added about 3/4" to the top and bottom, and about 1" to the left and right. I'm assuming a seam allowance of 1/4", and decided to bind the raw edges (rather than turning right-sides-out).
I used scraps of fusible interfacing to stabilise and stiffen the patchwork covers; basted the covers wrong-sides together with an edge-stitch; then quilted them together with vertical straight-line quilting.
I decided to add a little pocket inside the cover, spanning both front and back. For this, I simply eyeballed how tall I wanted the pocket (just over 1/2 the book height), found a suitably-sized scrap, folded it half, topstitched near the folded edge; and edge-stitched the whole thing to the cover.
For the felt pages, I decided to make two (pseudo?) signatures of one leaf each, rather than stack both pieces of felt together. To do this, I folded the cover in half, then marked lines just to either side of the fold. Then I positioned the centre of the felt on these lines.
...This is a lot of words just to say:
I think this is a good size to keep at home, but I think I want a smaller size to tuck in a project bag. Having made this once, I think I've figured out the order of operations now:
Cut cover panel (x2) based on felt sheet size. Optionally fuse interfacing to the cover panels.
WST, baste then quilt cover panels together.
Optional closure: depending on your chosen method, it might be a good time to sew it on now.
Cut pocket panel (can be eyeballed).
Fold pocket panel and topstitch near fold. Align pocket on cover, and baste edges in place. Optionally stitch down the centre of pocket panel.
Bind the raw edges using bias tape.
Fold the book in half. Mark sitch line(s) for attaching the felt sheets.
Fold felt sheets in half. Sew down the centre of felt sheet along the marked stitch line(s).
Optional closure can only be hand-stitched now.
