Quiet Book - the book so far

I thought I'd add some pics of the book up to now, especially as I finally got the cover done and the rings to hold the pages in place.

And one of my munchkin actually playing with it - yay!

Quiet book - page 6: Apple tree

This was another one that I saw on a different blog, but of course I can't remember which one. This page requires the apples to be taken off the tree and put in the basket.

The apples are made of felt and I have backed them and done a blanket stitch around them before sewing on a snap.

The tree trunk is felt and the tree 'leaves' is cut from cut from cotton and then both have been sewn around and onto the page.

For the basket I started with 2 pieces of white cotton, one rounded a bit at the top for the back of the basket, and the other a bit concave for the front of the basket. I then sewed some gauze to the front piece of white cotton to give the basket a weave look. Then both pieces were sewn to the page. I puckered the front piece a bit so it would pouch out enough to fit the apples in.

Finally I got out my fabric paints to add the hill, some grass and a flower, otherwise the page would have been a bit blank. Then finished as I did with the others with some bias around the edge, and now it is actually in the book. Looks pretty good if I do say so myself.

Quiet Book - Cover

I thought I should make something to put my quiet book pages in so made a cover for them. I have all this lovely girly fabric but managed to restrain myself in case #2 is a boy. I'm sure it wouldn't have really been as issue, but I am hoping that both kids will get some use out of it. After a rummage I came up with the fabric I used to make the fabric high chair. I thought this would work well as it is a sturdy, durable fabric and would be easy to find with the bright yellow.

I started by cutting out 2 rectangles that allowed an extra 3cm at the top and bottom and sides of the pages, as well as allowing 6cm for the 'spine'.

From the yellow fabric I also cut a smaller square that will serve as a pocket on the back for bits of notepaper or even holding pieces from the book if necessary.

I went to sew the pieces together a couple of times before stopping to realise that a) I need to sew the pocket on first and b) I need to do the buttonholes in the spine first. The buttonholes will have metal rings through them (the kind you get at a stationary store) so that the pages can be removed and shared amongst kids. I am so lucky to have and awesome buttonhole feature on my machine. I just found a tiny button to use as a guide and they were all done! I also used this same button to add buttonholes to my already finished pages in the corresponding spots.

Pocket and spine

Then came sewing the pieces together, right sides facing and leaving a gap to turn in the right way. I also top stitched around the edge to make the edges sit well. Then I sewed two lines down the middle 6cm apart to form the spine of the book. This will hopefully give it a bit more shape when the pages are in it. The cover is a bit boring at the moment but when I get some inspiration I'll just use some Heat n' Bond and add something fun.

Cover

Next step is get onto finishing the pages. I'm halfway through an apple tree page and have a page planned with a backpack and a small zip, and a shoe that laces up.

Quiet book - page 5: Flower Pot

I felt like I was on a roll with the quiet book and whipped up this page really quickly. This page is to practice with buttons, with the flowers able to be unbuttoned.

Easy to do - started by cutting out the flowers and attaching fusing to the back, and again doing a blanket stitch around them to keep them tidy. I then used my handy buttonhole foot to create the buttonholes in the middle of the flowers. I chose buttons that didn't take up too much room as the buttonhole needed to fit on the flower with room to spare.

For the stalks I used some green ribbon which I first hand stitched to the flower, then I sewed the other end to the page after placing them where I wanted them. The flower pot was sewn over all of this.

Final step was to sew on the buttons. I pinned the flower stems down first so that the buttons were in the right place and....voila!

Quiet book - page 4: Ice Cream colours

So this page is for colours. I first saw this idea on camillescasa and really liked it. I used my own design for the ice cream and cone but there are templates available on her page.

I had some scraps of leather that I had picked up so decided to use one for the ice cream cone. I scored the leather on a criss cross design to give the cone some detail.

The ice cream scoops are felt with fusing on the back, and hand stitched blanket stitch around the edge to help keep these tidy. There are 3 pieces of the fluffy half of velcro above the cone to put the scoops on.

I was going to have some more velcro to hold the spare scoops but decided to just sew a little pocket down the bottom to store them in.

In hindsight I would have put the cone a bit lower but I think it still works. Now if only Chloe could learn which colour is which...

Quiet book - page 3: Shapes

After doing a couple of very involved pages as the first 2, I wanted to do something a bit easier for the next 2 pages. Shapes seemed to be easy so I started on that.

I traced around 6 shapes onto cardboard from Chloe's Tupperware Shape sorter - circle, square, triangle, cross, star and pentagon. I used the templates to cut out 2 of each shape from material and ironed these onto some fusing to give them some strength. Onto one of each of the shapes I sewed a square of velcro (the scratchy side) before sewing the 2 pieces of each shape together with a zigzag stitch.

The fluffy half of the velcro was sewn onto the calico. To create the shape to match the piece with, I painted the shape onto the calico around the velcro. To finish, even though Chloe can't read yet, I sewed the names of the shapes under each one. A bit of fusing on the back of the calico will help little fingers to pull off the shapes.

Next page - colours.

Quiet book - page 2: Pond

I wanted page 2 to have something to do with page 1 so I decided to do a fish pond with ducks.

I found some pictures of fish and ducks on the internet and printed them out the right size. I cut out 4 fish from orange felt and 3 fish from yellow felt but I wanted to reinforce them a bit. The fish would be attached with domes so I also cut out 4 fish from a stiff white cotton and ironed a bit of facing to it as well. The domes got sewn onto the cotton and ten all of that got sewn onto the felt using blanket stitch.

The water is a scrap piece of fleece which I sewed the other half of the domes to and then attached it to the page. With each page I want a piece of batting in between so I sewed the 'pond' through the page and the batting together. This is where my fabulous new machine came in great with its quilting 'walking' foot. I sewed a few wavy lines through the pond too to make it easier to pull the fish off the domes.

The ducks would be attached by velcro so, again, I reinforced them with cotton before sewing the velcro on. I learnt quickly that felt doesn't do well with heat and I have one smaller duck where I tried to iron on some facing. I guess you have to make these mistakes with materials you don't often work with to figure it out.

I decided the whole thing needed something more so I got some green brick-a-brack to be some pond reeds. These also serve as fish savers - they are attached to the fish so they don't get lost.

Finally, I used fabric paint to put a cloud and sun at the top - done!

To finish the whole page off I sewed some black bias tape around the edge. I plan to put some button holes in the sides eventually so all the pages can be joined with a metal ring. This way the pages can be separated and shared between kids.

Quiet book - page 1: Barn

I have had this in the pipeline for quite a while. I have been looking at other blogs for ideas and sketching my own in my craft book, but this is the first one I have actually done.

Firstly, I am using good old calico for the pages (I got a big piece from the scrap bin at the local David's Emporium that was from the end of a roll). I have cut them out in rectangles big enough for 2 pages and I have zigzagged the edges.

This first page comes directly from someone else's book. I promise that I have come up with a couple of my own, but this one was so cute that I had to try it first. So thanks to Jill for this one, and also the awesome templates.

I have made the barn from an old bandana; the doors, finger puppets and the bit they sit in are all felt; and obviously the trim is ribbon. I can't wait to do more now. Chloe is already having fun with this one.