Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Quilted Paperback Book Cover - Part 4

PART4
This post is a continuation of
To close your opening, you are going to fold your fabric to the inside of the cover so that the folded edges are facing out. We will sew a 1/8" seam all the way around the cover to close the cover and set the pockets in place.

Pin your opening closed
I just leave them sticking up and pull them out before they touch the end of my foot but pin perpendicular to the seam you're sewing if that works better for you.

Sew 1/8" seam all the way around the cover, starting with your open edge
You cover can now be done if you want it to be! That's right folks, if you want to be done at this point your cover will work just fine.
 
If you would like to add some additional quilting by hand (anywhere), machine quilting,  embroidery, embellishments, etc. you can do so at this point. Just be careful not so sew the pockets to the cover as that would prevent your book from sliding in.

I ended up adding a bit of embroidery using Valdani perle cotton size 8 thread (from PurlSoho.com) but I'm not quite finished yet. 
You can see in this picture that I've finished my covers several different ways: very thinly spaced straight line quilting, straight line quilting spaced further apart, hand quilting, or nothing at all.
The following are pictures of individual covers I have made recently. As you can see, they're all a little different:
string pieced cover, no quilting
machine appliqued hexagons, echo hand quilting with variegated valdani perle size 8 thread
single cut of fabric, variegated valdani perle size 8 stitching in all the light green lines
And here's another showing the outside and inside of the cover in more detail:
 
My plan is to add some hand quilting in the solid gray areas to finish this cover off.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! These paperback book covers would make a great gift for the holidays to a fellow book lover. The measurements I used in the tutorial are for mass market paperback books and will fit most books in that category.  The covers also work well for keeping the book you are reading private so that, as my friend recently mentioned, you can read smutty romance novels and no one will know! You could also use the same method to make a cover for a journal or notebook.

I'd love to see your creations! I hope you will add them to the Threaded Mess flickr group. If you do, I might just show your work off on this blog!

Happy Quilting


9 comments:

tusen said...

Great idea, thank you so much for sharing.

CraftyStitches said...

This is beautiful Natalie.

Carolyn S. said...

These are so lovely!

Unknown said...

Those all look fantastic! (Although I must say I think I love the green hexie one the mostest!)

Camille said...

Oh my goodness, that stack of books is making me so happy right now. Looove! Going to have to find some time to make a few of these for my favorites. Bookmarking now. Thanks for sharing! (And for your sweet comment :-)

Natalie said...

thanks everyone!! I am hoping to add some more advanced designs soon :)

Steph said...

I LOVE these!! You're so talented. xx

amy dame said...

this is such a great idea! we always have an awesome door prize table at guild meetings, with plenty of handmade prizes. these would be perfect thing to make up for it!

years ago, i got my ex totally hooked on Nora Roberts, but of course there was no way he'd read them in public, so i made him a duct tape bookcover to use on the bus. this is much cooler!

amy dame said...

okay, and i just made the pictures bigger and noticed that the book you're using has an ad for a Nora book on the front cover. which made me go back to the previous posts and see what you were reading!

i love that series, they were the ones that got me hooked on Nora when i was a young teenager. i'm glad they've reprinted them so that i could get my own copies!