Batting Scrap Challenge - Project 1

Hello everyone!

If you haven't already checked out this post about the Batting Scrap Challenge, go check it out!

Ok, now that you're back I'll show you what I've been up to tonight.

First, some background info: I love to read and prefer hardcovers because I DESTROY paperbacks. I learned this the hard way when I borrowed The Da Vinci Code from my friend Nick. By the time I was done with his book it was scratched, worn away, water marked, and bent to the point that I was embarrassed to return it to him. And I was being careful!

From that point forward I swore off paperbacks and stuck to buying hardcovers. One day I found this book (hardcover), Dark Celebration, in a bargain bin at Borders for $3 and got totally hooked. The story is about a race of people (Carpathians) similar to humans but with super strength, speed, ability to shape shift, and other supernatural powers who become vampires if they don't find their soul mates, and have to hunt their brethren who succumb to the temptation of power and lust for killing. I had no clue the book I picked up was #14 of a 20+ book series still being written and that most of the books are only available as mass market paperbacks. That's how they get you with those bargain books! They hook you into a series!

I liked the first book so much I decided to buy a couple more from the beginning of the series. When they arrived from Amazon I decided to make a quilted book cover to keep myself from destroying them. My first attempt was pretty lame. I took some Amy Butler Midwest Modern fat quarters in my stash and some Amy Butler Midwest Modern scraps from a blue and green quilted nursing cover I made my sister and (without a pattern) made myself a cover that would work for a mass market paperback. I found out first hand why it's better to use a mitered binding rather than sewing the strips together in a straight line (very bulky). I also made the mistake of using minky fabric for the binding on the book sleeves (I don't really know why I thought this would be a good idea) so they ended up more bulky than I would have liked but the book cover worked for my purpose so I was pretty happy.

Since that first book cover I have tried to perfect the process. I think the quickest method so far was to just buy fabric already quilted from my local JoAnn Fabrics! JoAnn.com seems to be down right now but check out this link at Fabric.com to see what I am talking about. The only problem with that method is you have to bind the edges of the sleeves, bind the cover, and hand sew the bindings to the back which adds more time to the process.

Tonight I tried something a little different. I wanted to avoid hand sewing if at all possible so as I constructed my book cover I kept in mind how it needed to be sewn together to ensure no hand sewing was necessary. I used scraps from Maura's Strata Square quilt made from Bali Pop in Kiwiberry. The scraps were teeeeeeeny tinnnnnny leftovers:

Which I sorted and combined to form a piece I could use for the outside of my book cover:

I ironed as I pieced:

And kept adding and adding:

Until I had a rectangle big enough for the cover:

I found another scrap of a purple and blue fabric (from the batik bundle Ginny gave me for Christmas--thanks again Ginny!) that was the perfect size for the inside and the sleeves:

I pulled out some batting scraps from the wedding attendant quilts (I think this was from Maura's too):

Cut some for the sleeves and the cover and started sewing keeping in mind that I wanted all my unfinished edges to end up inside the cover:

Once I had the sleeves done I arranged them, the inside fabric, batting, and outside fabric and pinned them with safety pins:

I sewed around the edges leaving myself about 2 inches to turn it right side out, pressed it, sewed about 1/8 of an inch all the way around to close the hole I left myself, and then quilted down the middle to fix some of the odd fitting scraps I used (totally quilted it out lol):

And presto change-o, a book cover:

I am still perfecting this process so until I do I am not going to do an official tutorial but I hope this project has inspired you to go get your binding scraps and make something totally awesome! I'm signing off for the evening to go do some reading using my new book cover. Thanks for letting me share with you!

Happy Quilting!