I am presently turning the samples from the last post into book covers. Here's how I went about it.
This is one of the notebooks I am covering. I have opened it out to make a pattern.
I have drawn around the opened journal and added extra for turn unders and a little extra for the spine.
The pattern. I used this under my fibre fabric samples to make sure I made them large enough as well as to make the covers.
I have folded under the extra outside the pattern,
I have placed this on my lining fabric and used my ruler to cut an extra 1/4 inch all the way around.
Then placed it over the cover fabric, right sides together.
and sewed around using 1/4 seam (I have actually sewed more than this at the ends, as my cover fabric was a bit short.)
Leave an opening at one end so you can turn it inside out.
Trim the edges and crop the corners, making sure you don't cut through the stitching.
Turn inside out, then use something like a knitting needle to push out the corners and edges. Press.
Open out your book on top of the cover, lining up.
Fold the excess at each end into the front and back covers, then close the book. Finger press the folds into place while the book is closed (otherwise, your cover will end up too tight)
Pin down the folds if required. Stitch each fold down at the top and bottom. This is best done by hand, as is most of the rest of the construction. The cover is basically finished, but needs a bit of embellishment, I think.
I couched a piece of cord from the centre front to the centre back along the top of the cover.
And the bottom. This creates ties for the cover. We could leave it at that, but...
A little bit more couching with the cord and the addition of a button or bead add just a little style. You could also add a motif to the front cover, or an ATC, but I like to put those on plainer covers, so they don't look overdone.
Of course I still have quite a few left to make and they will all be different, so I will post those designs when I have finished all of them.
OOPs - For those of you who are very observant - yes, I did change samples half way through the photographs. The earlier cover was made from
fabric paper (which is why it was not quite long enough - it was made before I bought the books), whilst the second half showed a cover made with one of the samples from my last post.
Don't just take time to create - make time!
