Quilted Paperback Book Cover - Part 4

PART4

This post is a continuation of

• Quilted Paperback Book Cover - Part 1 
• Quilted Paperback Book Cover - Part 2
• Quilted Paperback Book Cover - Part 3

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