sewhungryhippie: Texture Book tutorial

The Textured Thankful Book Project

I shared my tutorial for this textured Thankful Book on
Marigolds' Loft a while ago.

I figured I would share it again here, in case you missed it.

Do stop by her blog, it is fabulous. ;)

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I try to include my toddlers as often as possible in my sewing work. This project came from a fusion of having them help me sew & craft, and talking about things we are grateful for.

1. Start by collecting pieces of fabric. I used old jeans for two of the pages, I love the look of old denim as well as the frugalness of using up old things. All six pieces of the fabrics need to be cut to the dimensions listed.

2. Cut twelve pieces of batting/padding at 7” squares.

3. Press all the pieces of fabric in half to form a crease line for the spine of the book.

Insert pic 3 & pic 4

Now talk to your kids or think about what you could put into your book as “things to be thankful for”...

4. Get out your Cricut if you have one and let’s make some templates for our shapes. If you don’t have a cutting machine you can draw them out (like I did the T-Rex) or print of some pics online and trace around them. Make it work. ;)

5. After removing the cut templates from the Cricut, pin them to a piece of fabric or felt and cut out the shapes.

6. Find your nearest fusible web (heat n Bond Lite works great) and cut out the shapes again. You can omit some labor by cutting these out along with the fabric pieces, but I found the felt would shift too much, so I cut them separately.

7. Iron the shape to the book fabric piece with the fusible webbing underneath the shape. *So fabric of page/webbing/shape. Press.

8.Place a piece of batting in the center of the back side of a page. Pin. Whilst sewing the appliqué on the front side, you will be attaching the batting at the same time. Take care not to bunch it in back, check every few turns.

Sew the appliqué on the front with whatever stitch you prefer. I used a straight stitch for a cleaner look.

9. Check alignment before proceeding to the others.

10.Gather some bits of chalk cloth (easily bought from fabric stores online and local like Joann Fabrics and fabric.com). Cut these bits to roughly 3”x1.5” depending on aesthetics.

11.Place onto each page (don’t pin it, just hold it in place) and sew on with a tight zigzag or a satin stitch.

12. See how your kids can then write on it? Awesome. It will be a learning tool on so many levels.

13. Once all the chalk cloth pieces are on their pages, layer two pages together with the wrong sides facing. The right sides are facing out. Pin. Sew around the perimeter at ½” seam.

14. Layer ALL the pages together now. Remember that crease we made when we folded the fabrics in half? We will sew down that crease line now to make the “spine” of our book. I used a straight stitch, but a zigzag would work well too.