Some people are just impossible to get gifts for so I try to think outside the box. By making gifts myself, the odds are a bit more in my favour as creations will be one of a kind. Now that Christmas has passed I can finally post the journeys I took on some of the gifts that were given this year.
A noren is a traditional Japanese fabric divider that can be used inside or outside a building. I designed this one for the doorway into my brother’s home office. With Covid he has been working from home. I got the design parameters from Sew in Love. I used Rin’s pattern and modified the measurements to fit the door that I was making the noren for.
It was a slow process from start to finish. The hard part wasn’t actually creating the noren itself. It was creating the designs to make it more ecstatically appealing that gave me the most difficulty. I had started off with wanting to make the designs out of 100% cotton because it is light weight and would lay flat. However, it was near impossible to make the angles that I was trying to make when hemming to give a finished edge.
When I couldn’t get the edges to look polished, I set the project aside for awhile and worked on other things. I decided to change the fabric I was using to felt because the edges wouldn’t fray like cotton does. Luckily, I had black felt on hand and did not need to make a run to the store. I would inevitably come back with more than just the black felt that I had gone for. The new characters came out a lot better.
The finished product came out amazing! It was worth the struggle it took to make it to a finished product. Now that I have done it once, it will also be easier to replicate in the future. The design elements may be difficult to come up with, but will not pose a challenge in execution. プロジェクトがかんりょおしました。
