Making of A Covered Book

 

Today I had the opportunity to make another covered book….this time as a Birthday present for a friend who I was having lunch with.  As you can guess, I was in a bit of a hurry….

The first step was to pick a pattern.  For this, I went online and searched for  free Stained-glass patterns and was rewarded with a huge number of ideas.  These are great for simple applique designs.

 

So, I started with a pattern and a blank Composition Book.

 

 

 

Next step was to draw the pattern pieces onto the paper side of a sheet of “Wonder Under”.   I knew that the pattern would be reversed, but was actually happier with it that way.

 

 

 

I turned to my 2-1/2 strip drawer and picked out four yellow prints for the sunflower and ironed the Wonder-Under onto the back. 

Next step was to cut out the petals and remove the paper from the back.  This is easily done by taking a seam ripper and scoring the backing paper so that there is a tear in the paper ( but not in the fabric).  It is easy to peel off this way….much easier than trying to separate the fabric and paper at the edge of the piece.

 

 

I then put the pattern, right side  down onto a light  box and placed a Teflon pressing sheet over the pattern.  I proceeded to place the cut out flower petals over the pattern.

 

 

 

After all were in place, I carefully scooted the Teflon sheet off of the light box and onto the ironing  board, and gave the entire flower a good steam press.

This attaches the fabric to the pressing sheet, but it can easily be peeled off and the flower removed in one piece.

 

After selecting the front cover fabric, I placed all of the pieces on the background and pressed it in place.

 

 

 

 

Now for the fun part……  pulling out all of my threads, both normal and funky, and enjoy adding details, as well as securing the fabric edges to the base fabric.

 

After I had  measured the size of the book, I added almost 3 inches to the vertical and 1-1/2 inches to the horizontal measurements.  I cut out a piece of wonder-under that was this size and applied it to the reverse side of my front piece. 

 

 

 

After trimming it a bit, I removed the paper and placed the fabric over the top of the book, leaving an overlap on the top, bottom and edge of the book.  The left side of the fabric was placed just outside of the book binding.

 

I ironed the fabric to the front of the book….carefully, with steam.

 

 

 

The corners were cut out….remember doing this when you covered books back in school!!

The top, bottom and sides were pressed to the inside of the book.

 

 

 

 

These last few steps were repeated with the back fabric.

 

 

 

The final step was to cut a piece of Wonder-Under 2-1/2 inches wide and fuse it to a selected 2-1/2 fabric strip from my scrap strips.  I used the rotary cutter to make a slightly curved edge on both sides of the strip.

 

 

 

This strip was cut to the proper length and then carefully fused to the binding and onto each side of the book cover.

 

 

 

 

 

Voila…..a fun finished project….and in less that 2 hours!!!!