Cat Themed Britto-style Felt Glasses Case
One of my best friends just loved Mom's Britto-style felt cheaters case, so I decided to make her one, too. She loves cats, so I did a search to see if Romero Britto has any cat art out there. I found a couple of designs and adapted them into one that would fit the size for her glasses case, which is a little larger than Mom's.
Here's what I came up with:
Here's what I came up with:
I made a photocopy of this diagram and cut all the shapes out of it. Then I used the shapes to cut the pieces of felt to appliqué, as well as the backgrounds in black and magenta. Some of the felt sheets are thin enough that the black shows through -- these are doubled to make them opaque. The picture pieces were basted to the black background, leaving empty lines of black between them.
Using doubled button and craft thread in black, I appliquéd
the felt pieces to the black base using a whipstitch, then removed the basting stitches. Then I used a backstitch to embroider the beaded designs in frost Wildfire (which is just like Fireline), since the craft thread is too thick to go through the beads more than once. After that, the embroidered black piece was stitched to the magenta background piece, again using a whipstitch and doubled black craft thread. This hides all the stitching from the embroidery.
To determine the size and shape of the bottom, I rolled the entire piece lengthwise so the long edges met, turned it on one the edge I wanted to close, and traced the shape. I cut a piece of magenta felt to fit this shape, a piece of black just a bit smaller, then a piece of turquoise felt a bit smaller than that. Then this got embroidered like the rest.
Using doubled button and craft thread in black and the blanket stitch, I sewed the lengthwise edges together, then the teardrop shaped bottom, then the open edges of the other end so all edges were stitched to match each other. Again, I like the idea of the whipstitching and blanket stitching being visible and obvious – they emphasize that this is a hand-made piece of textile art.
Here is the finished glasses case, which my friend loves!
To determine the size and shape of the bottom, I rolled the entire piece lengthwise so the long edges met, turned it on one the edge I wanted to close, and traced the shape. I cut a piece of magenta felt to fit this shape, a piece of black just a bit smaller, then a piece of turquoise felt a bit smaller than that. Then this got embroidered like the rest.
Using doubled button and craft thread in black and the blanket stitch, I sewed the lengthwise edges together, then the teardrop shaped bottom, then the open edges of the other end so all edges were stitched to match each other. Again, I like the idea of the whipstitching and blanket stitching being visible and obvious – they emphasize that this is a hand-made piece of textile art.
Here is the finished glasses case, which my friend loves!