Back to bookwraps

While preparing for the open studio event, I came across lots of unfinished work - and lots of finished work (journal quilts etc) that no longer pleased me, or seemed to have no purpose.

So for the next few weeks, I'll be spending my studio time "spinning straw into gold" - making more bookwraps for the CQ tombola at Festival of Quilts, to raise funds for the Quilters' Guild. (This is a follow-up to the very successful Little Gems tombola a few years back.)

The Bookwrap Gems team has set up a website - http://bookwrapgems.wordpress.com/ - with patterns etc. It's now populated with photos of the hundreds of bookwraps that have been submitted already. Go and have a look, and have a go - you can take it along to the tombola stand at FOQ.

Now that I've made a few bookwraps, I've settled on one method and they seem to make themselves. Here's a summary of what I'm doing. 

I'm making two sizes, to fit an A6 and an A5 hardback sketchbook, and have a couple of pieces of paper cut to the right size, which I lay on the quilted fabric and cut around. The A6 template measures 10" x 6 3/4", the A5 template measures 13 1/4" x 9 1/8" - they include the seam area, ie the area that gets covered by binding round the edge. I thought my seams were 1/4", using the marker on the presser foot, but it seems they're a bit narrower, so if you're planning to make several bookwraps, first do one and check your seam width to make sure the book cover actually fits in.

Template was used to cut a rectangle from the quilted fabric

Pockets added at either side

Narrow binding sewn round
(my tutorial on narrow binding is here)

Binding is pin-basted and sewn "in the ditch" by machine

The finished bookwrap

Some more measurements: the pockets are the height of the template and about half the width of the book - finished size about 2 1/2" for A6, 3 1/2" for A5. I've been using organza, cutting it double the width and folding it. With cotton, simply make a 1" hem on the open side.

The narrow binding ends up at 1/4" (or so...) - and if you cut a strip 1 7/8" wide, and fold it double, that will wrap round to the back and leave a nice overlap so that your machine stitching catches the binding and holds it down. But "your mileage may vary" -- you may want to adjust the width of the strip to fit in with your preferred seam width, ie the marking on your presser foot.

The interior view of another finished bookwrap (for A5 book) and another quilted piece ready to be transformed -

This week's production line -

Encased in layers of quilted fabric, a notebook/sketchbook is a wonderful thing to hold - very satisfying in the hand.