hooray! five people have signed on to my busy book sew-along, so there will be free patterns for everyone! but first, some basic details about this project.
1. the pages for my book will be largely constructed of felt (wool felt when i have it in my stash, acrylic sometimes) and will have an image size of 9×9″ and a full page size of 9×12″ (the extra 3″ will accommodate the grommets for binding purposes). i’m basing these details and dimensions on this quiet book’s tutorial. follow this link to learn how to construct the pages for this book. (she’s got amazing pages!)
2. whenever possible, i will avoid hand-sewing. too time-consuming! i’m trying to build pages for three different books here (don’t ask why i’m crazy enough to sign up for three books. maybe someday i’ll explain.) and don’t have time to hand-sew every single detail.
3. whenever possible, i will avoid purchasing any new supplies to make these pages. i really need to use up my stash. if you do not have a stash of felt, i’d recommend getting a stack of wool felt if you can afford it (much higher quality than acrylic and if you’re going to be putting this much work into the pages you want them to last!).
4. the recipients of my busy books are all little boys (ages 1.5-2.5 years-ish) so i’m going to focus my efforts on pages that will appeal to that age range. at times, i may be able to offer variations for different age groups.
5. whenever possible, i’d like to avoid having loose parts that can get lost in this book.
i’m keeping a pinterest board of inspiration here and i’ve started a flickr group here where participants can post photos of their own pages. anyone is welcome to join at anytime. i’d love to have even more sewists play along!
look for the first page and free pattern to be posted sometime this week.
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