my new Benzie Design wool felt color collection and giveaway winners

Image courtesy of Renae Bradley, Benzie Design

I once again have the pleasure of curating a guest collection of delicious wool felt colors at Benzie Design, this time to celebrate the debut of the Flora Needle Book pattern! The wools look so pretty all in a row, don't they? Go here to view the collection in her shop.

This collection is inspired by the colors that I used in the first needle book I made. It's also a versatile starter set to have, which features a modern palette. Here's a recent book I made in the same colors as that first book, only with the new pattern:

Once you try working with wool and wool blend felts, you may never go back to acrylic craft felts. Wool felts come in such a wider array of lovely colors (for instance, Benzie Design offers 80 different wool blend colors) and the texture and durability are exponentially better than acrylic. Not to mention you can actually iron wool felt and it won't melt.

Acrylic felt has its place in crafting, don't get me wrong. I've used it plenty of times for kids crafts or decorations. Can't beat the price. But for small, detailed work, a nice handmade gift, an heirloom doll, or any project that takes an investment of time or materials, you should step up to wool.

Image courtesy of Renae Bradley, Benzie Design

Ooh. A closeup of the collection. Good enough to eat!

And you could certainly mix and match this collection in different ways than I did. I can envision a maroon needle book with orange, blue and pink applique and pink pages. A blue book with maroon, yellow and orange applique and yellow pages. A green book with blue, yellow and soft green applique and yellow pages. All kinds of color combos in there. *eyes getting dreamy far away look*

*snapping back to blog* A great thing about making the needle books is they use relatively small amounts of felt, so you could get several books made out of one bundle of felt. This is why I keep a coke crate filled with tiny wool felt scraps. Even the smallest pieces are potential floral appliques.

OK! On to the needle book and pattern giveaway winners! The Grand Prize Winner (grand prize being the choice of one of four needle books made by me) goes to: (rustling fancy envelope)

Darcy of Modern Cozy! Congratulations, Darcy. I'll get it in the mail to you soon. BTW, loving that orange and blue mini quilt in your cupboard.

And, the winners of the two free Flora Needle Book patterns are... (fumbling envelope and microphone, laughing apologetically at co-announcer Aidan Turner. Wow, he looks dreamy in a tux, doesn't he?)

Nanou! (Bonjour, Nanou, can you contact me with your email address?)

aaaaand

Little Ella Lu! You have some pretty cute puddle jumpers there!

Thank you to everyone for your participation and for all the kind words posted about the pattern and the needle books!