Stitched Fabric and Paper Book Tutorial . Part 2 of 2

By StitchyWooWoo

‘Little Love Book’

Stage 3 Making up of Cover .

Outside Cover.

Decorate outside cover on right hand side of fabric.

A  mixture of bits and pieces of torn fabrics, vintage hankies, laces, ribbons, trims, braids can all be used to add to your fabric and pages covers and pages. Use the tiniest pieces of old embroideries, old printed bits anything that is appropriate for your theme.

Stitch on title text piece. Stitch on ribbon or lace. Stitch on heart.

Here you can see I have added to the heart by stitching a gathered strip of printed cotton around the edge and doing a bit of free motion machine stitching.

Inside Cover

Take inside cover piece and stitch on ‘This book belongs to’ and ‘Name’ labels – on left hand side of fabric.

Prepare pocket – fold and stitch top edge of pocket. 

On right hand side of inside cover stitch around 3 sides of your pocket to attach to cover. Reverse stitch at top corners to secure.

I am making up my book with frayed edges because I love the look of torn and aged fabrics. *

So put wrong sides of outside and inside cover together

and stitch all round 4 sides of cover. Stitch ribbon /torn fabric strips, ties in place – one on the front and one on the back.

*if you prefer to have all your edges enclosed then put RIGHT sides together and stitch around 3 sides. Turn inside out and hand stitch opening together.

Crease fold down centre. That is your cover completed. Now for the insides.

Stage 4 Making the  Pages

Paper Pages

Fold paper in half down centre. Crease firmly.

On each sheet you will have a left hand page and a right hand page either side of the fold line. And of course the reverse sides of the paper, forming the other side of the pages. So with 1 sheet of paper you will actually have 4 pages.

Working on one page at a time decorate to your liking. There are no hard and fast rules. Just have fun placing bits on your pages. Either glue or stitch with machine. Note that any stitching you do will show through on the underside of your page. You can avoid this by stitching into small bits of fabric or paper and then gluing these onto your page. I am happy to have stitching on both sides as it adds to the handmade look of the journal. You can place things appropriately over any stitching if you work it out beforehand.

1.       Attach text pieces - under lay with torn fabrics or ribbons.

2.       Attach ribbons/torn fabrics/ lace/ torn papers.

3.       Attach pockets/ envelopes/ tags.

Decorate all 4 pages of your sheet of paper.

Do the same process with the other 3 sheets of paper- vary the placements and what you put on. Remember to leave plenty of room for your handwritten journal stuff later on.

Fabric Pages

Fabric pages are dealt with in the same way, sewing or glueing things into place.

However you do need to consider a few things:

Fabric is different to paper in that it does have frayed edges. – Do you like this effect or do you want to stitch the edges with zigzag or overlock stitch?  

It is harder to draw or write on. I tend to stitch stuff down after writing.

Fabric can be used to secure things by pining into the fabric. It is also better to have fabric pockets for heavier bits.

It can be embroidered either by machine or hand.

To make pockets simply fold pages in or up and stitch around sides – ensure you leave at least one side open to get into the pocket.

Work your pages as for paper pages – Crease or iron down centre to create fold. Decorate left and right hand sides of each page, flip over and work the reverse sides.

Do the other 2 pieces of fabric for your other pages , varying placements and trims/ embellishments.

You should now have 7 full sheets of decorated fabric and paper. That means you should have 14 pages and 28 sides. Hopefully we are all there!!!!

If you wish to add more pages either fabric or paper then now is the time to consider it.

Stage 5     Assembling Your Little Love Book.

Now we need to bring all this work together into our little book.

So……..

Putting pages together

Alternate fabric and paper pages – lay one full sheet on top of another full sheet. Try and get edges together but remember it’s a handmade book and sometimes things won’t always match up .

When you are happy with the arrangement of pages, fold in half and crease fold firmly.

Note : This fold line will be your stitching line.

Attaching pages to cover

Centre your set of pages down the centre of your fold of your cover.

Machine or hand stitch through all the pages . Secure stitching with reverse stitch on machine or knots if hand stitching. I add a tiny bit of glue on the ends just for added fixing here.

Fold book in half.

Your beautiful handmade Stitch fabric and paper book is now finished. Well done.

Stage 6     Your Little Love Book

Step back and admire your work.

You can now add other things to the pages, in journal style, write, draw, sketch, add special photos, love letters, love notes, pin brooches in , place secrets in pockets. Just have fun and personalize your little love book.

I do hope you enjoyed this tutorial and have made a lovely book to treasure. Please let me know how you have done. And show me photos of your wonderful finished books. Please also credit my tutorial instructions if adding your finished work to any blogs, social networking sites.

The inspiration of this book came from a 1940s Valentine card.

I have used the heart motif for the centre front cover and blue gathered fabric around the heart is inspired by the fabric on the embroidery ring. Using this card was A Creating the Hive e swap challenge.

Tutorial is to be used for non commercial purposes only. Copyright Sally Hutson

www.stitchywoowoo.co.uk