Handmade and hand binded sketch book

This is a sketch book I recently made for one of my friends birthdays.  It took me about 6 hours in total to make but she is well worth the time spent.  It is the very first time I had made a felted picture, or even a book for that matter, so considering that I really don't think its turned out bad at all.  Yet again I am proud of myself!

Its made out of felt, card board (cereal box), cartridge sketch paper and thread.

I started off making the felted picture first, using my faithful felting needles and some wool tops.

It took a little getting used to using the needles with the wool, and essentially 'paint' with the wool threads, but towards the end I think I really got the hang of it.  Enough control to write with it anyway.
Can't wait to try another felted picture now......

Next I put the book together.  I got 24 pieces of A4 cartridge paper, folded them in half in sets of 6, making 12 pages.  The pages needed trimming down due the inner pages of the fold protruding.  But I ended up with 4 sets of 12 pages (6 pieces of paper folded).
I then had to make a template for where I was going to thread the pages, and for where they were going to sit within the spine.  My spine ended up being 12mm wide ,with the pages threaded onto the cardboard I'd cut for the spine equally.


I then started putting the cover together, hand sewing pieces of felt to my felt picture for the front cover and the same colour pieces of felt for the back cover.  I cut 4 pieces of card board to the size I wanted the front and back cover.  I glued the sewn felted pieces I'd made on a piece of cardboard, one for the front and back, and the other 2 pieces of card board I glued onto the inside of the spine of the book.  The pieces of felt on the card board were then glued onto the cardboard glued on the spine, and the overlapping pieces of felt were trimmed, turned over, glued and then sewn on to the inside of the cover.

I then took a thin piece of felt for the spine to sew it onto the the front and back felt covers.  The book was completed by gluing patterned paper onto the inside of each cover.