Sew a Child's Fabric Shapes Book

By Debbie Colgrove

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Materials List

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Fabric Shapes Book Cover - Debbie Colgrove, Licensed to About.com

Fabric Shapes Book Cover. Photo Credit: Debbie Colgrove, Licensed to About.com

Materials List

1 yard of a bright color solid cotton fabric for the body of your book.
1/2 yard of Mid Weight Fusible craft interfacing for the cover
Light weight batting (the inexpensive packaged type is fine)
2 yards of fusible web - Paper backed is preferable.
Scraps of various fabrics to make your appliqué letters and shapes.
Thread - a variety from your stash. This is a great project to experiment with the various specialty threads on the market.

Print Out Appliqué Templates

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Fabric Book Cover Assembly Direction

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Fabric Book Cover - Debbie Colgrove, Licensed to About.com

Fabric Book Cover. Photo Credit: Debbie Colgrove, Licensed to About.com

Cover Cutting Directions:

Cut two pieces of cover fabric 19" by 12"
Cut one piece of sturdy Interfacing 19" by 12"
Cut one piece of light weight batting 19" by 12"

Assembly

Leave one piece of your cover fabric totally intact. On the other cover piece, find the center of the 19" width and make a slit in the middle. This will allow you to turn the fabric right sides out and will be enclosed in the book binding.

Baste or fuse the interfacing and the batting to the intact piece of cover fabric.
Fold the un-slit, interfaced piece of fabric cover in half along the 17" edges. One half of the cover is where you will be placing the cover design. Make temporary marks with straight pins or chalk, 1" in from the edges of this half, to remind yourself not to place any designs in that area, which will later be used for seaming the cover together.
Prepare appliqué fabric by applying fusible web as described in the manufacturers directions.
Choose and cut out a variety of shapes from the page templates. The cover is a good place to experiment with various textures to add to the child's learning experience. Fake fur, thermal fabric and lame, are just a few of the types of fabric you may want to experiment with.
More Information
- How to Appliqué with Fusible Web
- How to Appliqué With Turned Edges

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Book Cover Continued

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Appliqued Book Cover - Debbie Colgrove, Licensed to About.com

Appliqued Book Cover. Photo Credit: Debbie Colgrove, Licensed to About.com

Cut letters for the child's name from fusible prepared fabric and the letter templates.
Place the letters and shapes on the marked cover area. Play with the positioning until you are happy with the appearance.
Press all pieces into place
Using a shortened zig zag stitch, stitch all edges of all the appliqués to prevent fraying when the book is laundered.
Baste your batting to the appliquéd book cover piece of fabric

Place fabric cover pieces right sides together
Using 1/2" seams stitch around the entire outside edge of the cover pieces.
Trim all excess bulk and seam allowances. Trim the corners with a diagonal clip to eliminate bulk.
Turn the cover the right sides out, through the slit you made in the one piece of fabric cover.
Push out all corners and smooth out the cover. Press well!
Set aside and make the desired book pages.

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Directions for the Pages

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Debbie Colgrove, Licensed to About.com

Photo Credit: Debbie Colgrove, Licensed to About.com

Cut 6 pieces of the book body fabric 8 1/2" by 11"
Cut 3 pieces of batting 8 1/2" by 11"
Prepare the appliqués from the book page templates as you did to make the book cover appliqués.
Design each page and finish the appliqués as you did for the cover.
Baste a piece of batting to the wrong side of every other page piece. (Two page pieces will make one page and you only want one piece of batting inside each page.)

Place two pages right sides together, stitch 3 sides of the page together. Trim excess seam allowance and batting. Make diagonal trims at the corners.
Turn right side out and press.
Zig zag along the raw edge just to hold the page together and condense the edge.
Repeat for all of the pages.

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Join the Pages

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Join the pages - Debbie Colgrove, Licensed to About.com

Join the pages. Photo Credit: Debbie Colgrove, Licensed to About.com

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Attach the Book Cover

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Cover Placement - Debbie Colgrove, Licensed to About.com

Cover Placement. Photo Credit: Debbie Colgrove, Licensed to About.com

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Sew a Child's Fabric Shapes Book