Felt Friends From Japan

This book includes 86 easy-to-make toys and accessories in felt. 32 pages are devoted to full-colour pages of photographs of the toys and accessories, with the emphasis on cute animal characters such as Pao the Elephant, Miki the Monkey, and Rika the Rabbit. All toys and accessories have a Japanese cute sensibility, and are reminiscent in style of the type of character goods that were popular in Japan in the 1960s and 1970s when the author was a child. The remaining 32 pages give easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions for each project. Patterns for every project are included. All projects are hand sewn and are made with just felt and needle and thread. The instructions are simple enough to be followed by anyone from about age 10 upwards, and there is an explanatory page of basic stitches used in the book. In Japan the book is popular with female readers from teens to forties, and since June 2009 has been reprinted five times.