Putting the Wise Men's Camels Together

Remember the Three Wise Men's Camels mini-stocking I finished last winter? (If you are at the Yahoo 360 blog, you can click on Wise Men's Camel Stocking in the right hand column to see a photo of the finished canvas.) I'm starting to assemble it into an ornament. I am using--for the first time--foam core for the middle part, sandwiched between the canvas and a nice piece of tan felt Abby Cat sent me from New Zealand a few years ago. I am not going to include any padding in the middle of the sandwich, just the foam core. If you haven't seen foam core before, it resembles two sheets of heavy, slick paper with a middle of foam. It's used in framing and is light weight and strong. You can buy it in acid-free for framing and it comes in various thicknesses. You can buy a big sheet or remnants and have to cut it to size. I trimmed my little 6x6 square remnant with an exacto knife, and never got it really rounded but I think it will be ok.

The photo above shows the felt laid out with the foam core on top. MAKE SURE that you know which side of the foam core will be facing your NP so you orient the fabic the right way before cutting. I wrote B for back on the correct side that will be the back before I cut my felt. The next step is to fold the margins over, roughly tack them into position by sewing them, and then put dots of glue under the felt to attach it in several places to the foam core middle.

Then I will turn under the edges of my NP canvas and trim them to about 3/8 inch, then start hand sewing the NP to the foam core & felt back. After that I'll need to add trim to hide the seam. Wish me luck!

Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow