Book Cover Obsession

I love to read.

I love to read so much that my house is overflowing with books in basically every room.  I give them away, I stack them, I loan them and I cherish them. When I die, someone will have to go through all of them, because many are signed by the author or are first editions. I’m hoping to organize them.

Some day.

And I read them on a Nook too.  Just not enough.  I like to read nonfiction digitally.  I enjoy magazines online or on the ipad or on the Nook. I read biographies there, health, political books–anything I’m likely to read once and toss aside.  But a delicious, yummy, hefty fiction in a dreamy setting with characters I want to have as friends, and a storyline that goes on forever with themes…oh my…themes that resonate with the deepest part of my own flawed character?

Well, those are the books I want to carry around forever.  I want to touch them and hold them and..and…interact with them. I want to turn pages and go back to pages and look up dialogue and descriptions, and just enjoy holding them.

So I still read books.  The old-fashioned kind.

And what does someone do who loves both books and fabric?

Cover the books. In fabric.  I cover my favorites and I make covers in different sizes and move them around on the books I’m reading at any given time.  This is the easiest thing in the world to do, especially if you have a serger.

First find yourself the softest fabric – the stuff you want to pet the most.

I use a pattern from a book called “Ready Set Serge” by Georgie Melot. It’s one of the best beginner serging books I’ve seen.

IMG_2240[1]Most people don’t really know what to do with a serger, but once you learn to use one, you’ll never want to be without it.  They finish and cut a seam at the same time. They’re fast.

They are the best possible way to sew knits or garments. They are another tool in your belt, and like all tools, take a little training.

 

IMG_2241[1]I have a Babylock that was given to me by my mom several years ago. (She has a pacemaker and because the motors in segers are so strong, she is not supposed to get too close to them in action….isn’t that strange?) Anyway, sergers are notorious for being hard to thread, and with 4 threads, there’s definitely a knack to it.  The handbook is invaluable because I still use it every time I change settings.  However, for a 4-thread overlock, which I use the most, I just leave the serger threaded off to the side of my workspace, and simply plug it in when I am ready to work.

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The book covers require 4 straight cut pieces of fabric: cover, lining, and 2 side pockets. Plus one piece of ribbon to use as a bookmark. That’s it.  The sizes do change based on the size of the book, so you may want to experiment a little with the pattern.

 

crop

 

You can see that I make notes on patterns that I use often.  I’ve never met a pattern I didn’t want to modify. This way I know exactly how to cut the fabric for any particular book.

 

Her directions are very straightforward.  These sew up in about fifteen minutes, so of course, you’ll want to start a collection of them yourself.

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This is what a great 4 thread overlock stitch should look like. No pulling or bunching, lying completely flat, with the thread from the back side running right along the top of the edge of the fabric (that might be hard to see in this pic with the white background).

 

 

 

So the next time you find yourself snuggling up with a book, think about making a cover for it. What a tactile way to combine the pleasures of the mind with the pleasures of the senses.

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I’m Biased.

When it comes to binding quilts, I have a new standard.  I do my best not to use a straight cut binding any more.

Here’s why.  About 14 years ago, I made a silly little Christmas quilt –stack and whack — and hand quilted the whole thing.  For years this little quilt has been in our family room — thrown over the back of a sofa, strewn on the floor, used as a way to keep someone’s feet warm, folded and propped up as a pillow, and just generally loved to pieces.  Literally.

It has been washed countless times.

And it is beginning to fall apart. How sad.

IMG_2985You can see the fraying.  In some places, it’s worn clean through to the inside of the binding.

IMG_2991Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty frayed, even though the rest of the quilt is holding just fine.  I used quilt shop quality fabric, so the fabric was not an issue.

But even quilt shop fabric cannot withstand the repeated agitation of the washing machine and pummeling of a hot dryer.

Think about this: when a binding is straight cut, the very edge that you see fraying on my quilt is really only about 2-3 strands of thread.  All the abuse that quilts take is right on those edges, on those very few threads. Straight cutting your binding may be great for a wall-hanging or something that will have little handling and use.

But when you want your quilt to last and to withstand a little love (and cleaning), take the time to bias cut your binding.  With a bias cut, binding is no longer dependent on just a few threads, but on the hundreds of threads criss-crossing those edges. SO much stronger.

A few tips:

–Take advantage of the special tools out there that will help you to conserve fabric while cutting your binding.  The following picture includes the “Bias Binding Simplified” ruler from Creative Grids.  

–Watch the video on the Creative Grids page, as she also makes my point about using bias binding.  She gets to that explanation in the first 3 minutes.

–Try the “Quilter’s Strip Ticket” for Bias Tube Construction.  That’s the red card shown below.  You can get both of these tools at your local quilt shop. If not, for heaven’s sake, ASK them to order it. Using this method, you’ll waste very little fabric.

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I love a striped binding, and the most recent quilt I finished was certainly completed with a bias binding. I am permanently convinced. Of course I am.

I had to live it myself to learn the hard way. As usual.

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