This post is part 2 of the 3 part tutorial on how to make this DIY Liberty fabric book using your favorite prints. If you missed part 1, please read it here. The beautiful Liberty lawn fabrics used in this book were provided by Ava & Neve Liberte Courtiers.
Today’s post will cover how to make the pages inside the book. I chose to make 5 pages but you can make more or less depending how many prints you want to showcase.
UPDATE: Feb. 27, 2015 – Part 1 goes over how I made the book cover and part 3 details how to bind the book together and create the side binding.
Here is a recap of the materials listed in the part 1 tutorial.
Materials
- Liberty Art Fabrics – Sponsored by Ava & Neve
- Solid Quilting Cotton – Only the tan and white colors are purchased by me. All the other solid colors are Liberty lawn provided by Ava & Neve.
- Glue Stick
- Basting Glue – I used Aleene’s No Sew Fabric Glue. This is great because it washes out with water.
- Scissors or Rotary Cutter
- Interfacing – I used Pellon Craft-Fuse 808. This will make the pages stiffer.
- Sewing Machine – Alternatively you can hand sew all of the fabrics together.
- Thread
- Hand Sewing Needle
- Paper
- Iron
- Ruler
- Cutting Mat
- Pen – A normal pen will work but I used a FriXion pen so I could mark my fabric and then iron to make the ink disappear.
Instructions
- I wanted the theme of my book to center around Valentine’s Day but you can create any scene of your pleasing. If you’re a quilter try tiny quilt blocks or if you like sewing clothing, create them in miniature using different fabrics. The possibilities are endless!
2. For each page, cut 2 pieces of white quilting cotton the size of your book cover and add 1/2″ seam on each side for allowances, i.e. if your final book size is 10″ x 10″ cut 2 pieces of fabric 11″ by 11″. Another option is to cut your fabric double the width ( i.e. 11″ x 22″ ) so you can create 2 pages using 2 pieces of fabric instead of 4. This allows you to fold your page in half so you end up with 5″ x 5″ on each side after sewing in the seam allowances. I wanted the option to customize each page and bind them separately so I didn’t go this route.
For the page you will be sewing the Liberty fabric onto, use a disappearing fabric ink pen or FriXion pen like I did to mark the final size of the page after the seams are sewn. You want to make sure the Liberty fabric does not get encased in the seam allowances.
3. Use pen and paper to draft templates of your shape onto paper and cut out. Do a test fit using the paper templates to make sure they will all fit in the rectangle you marked with your pen. Then trace the shapes onto your Liberty fabric and cut them out. I used glue stick to adhere my fabric shapes to the quilting cotton first and then stitched around the edges.
There are endless options you can create for your pages. For this page here, I cut the floral motif from Childhood Treasures. I used pinking shears on the edges to prevent fraying but it’s totally optional. The hearts were cut from Strawberry Thief designed by William Morris. I love the color combinations of purple, red, and blue.
For this page I marked the letters using my FriXion pen and then used that as a guide for my stitching. After I was done I simply ironed it and the pen marks disappeared. The blue floral fabric on the left is another colorway of the Hampton Wedding and the bottom piece is Alice W both from the 2015 Alice in Wonderland Collection. Aren’t they gorgeous?
If your sewing machine comes with decorative stitches, you can incorporate them into your pages. I have a stitch containing a heart shape so I used that to sew around the page to simulate a frame. I used decorative thread so the stitching would stand out more. The fabrics I used are Tatum F ( top left ), Prince George D ( top right ), Bellis D ( bottom left ), and Betsy A ( bottom right ).
4. This step is totally optional. In a book you normal have the name of the author and publisher. I wanted to do something similar with my book so I got the logos from Liberty Art Fabrics, Mad For Fabric, and Ava & Neve to print onto a piece of muslin using my inkjet printer. I also cut out tiny Liberty heart shapes and used fabric glue to put near the bottom of each logo. Go to my Liberty Fabric Scrap Art Tutorial to see instructions on how to print fabric on a printer. The ink may not be colorfast depending on your printer so be careful not to get water after printing or else the ink might bleed.
5. For the back part of the page , I ironed on Pellon Craft-Fuse 808 interfacing to my quilting cotton. Then I put the pages right sides together and sewed around using a 1/2″ seam allowance leaving a 2 inch gap. I made sure the gap faced the left side where the pages would eventually be bound together. This is the same method I used to sew the cover detailed in my part 1 tutorial.
6. Since the back of each page is blank another optional step is to use fabric glue or to stitch tiny swatches of fabric to make a collage if you want to showcase more of your Liberty fabric.
Stay tuned for the 3rd and final part of this tutorial series where I’ll detail how to bind all the pages together to make the book.
Happy “mad” Liberty love!
What an absolutely enjoyable project! It just looks like fun. Thanks for sharing this.
Very cute! Thanks for the tutorial!