How to sew a book cover {that fits more than just one book}

February 1, 2013.Reading time 6 minutes.

Do you carry your book around wherever you go? Well, I do.
To keep them from getting damaged in my bag I use handmade book covers. No dog-ears no more!

Depending on how large you make the cover, it will fit several books that are about the same size.

First of all you need to make a pattern.
What you need:

Pick a book size you like. It can be your favorite one, the one that you read at the moment or one you want to give as a present to someone.
I think a standard paperback book size works great, since you’ll probably have and find a lot of books that fit in there.

Take a large sheet of paper (or tape some sheets together). It should be more than three times as wide as your book is. The height is the height of your book plus a comfort zone of about 2-3cm/1-1,5inch.

You’ll need that so the book slips in easily and the bigger the comfort zone, the more books will fits into the cover. But don’t exaggerate, otherwise it will be too loose.

Lay the book on the paper strip, front cover facing you.
To determine the size of the flap, fold the left side of the paper over the cover until the flap has the size you want it to have.
I think a large flap is good – the book cover will fit more tightly and you’ll have to space to keep some postcards, bookmarkers, etc.

Now close the book and turn it as seen in the pictures below.

To get the size of the front flap, fold the right side of the paper over your book and mark the paper where you want your front flap to end. Draw a line and cut the rest of the paper off.

Now you’ve got the pattern for cutting out your fabric.
For a simple book cover with a button fastening you will need two pieces of fabric.
When you place your pattern on the fabric, don’t forget to add seam allowance! I used about 1cm of seam allowance for the book cover I made.

In case you want to embellish your fabric, for instance with sequins, buttons, fabric paint etc., do it after you cut out the fabric and before you start sewing.
This is especially important when you’re using fabric paint, since you have to iron it before sewing to fix it.

This is one idea of how to embellish simple fabric with fabric paint. This book cover was a gift for my best friend.

If the fabric is slightly see-through, you can just place a copy or print-out of want you want to draw underneath the fabric and trace it with a textile pen.
I found the picture with the owl here and slightly changed it.

Before pinning and sewing everything together, it’s time to add any ribbon or labels.
If you want to add ribbon as in the picture above, place it in between the two fabric pieces and pin the ends of the ribbon onto the seam allowance to fixate it before sewing.

The Sewing

Pin the two fabric pieces together, right sides facing each other. Then sew along the marked seam line.
Don’t sew them together completely, but leave a gap of about 5-6cm/2-3inch, since you have to turn the whole thing inside out.
For that pull out the fabric, grabbing the right side through the gap you have left in the seam. The part will be handstitched up later on. A ruler may help you to define the edges and corners.

To get a flap like in the picture below, you need to turn your fabric right side up, so the lining is facing down.

Now fold one side of the fabric to create the flap. Make sure you’ve got the correct side, in case you embellished the outer fabric. You don’t want everything to be upside down in the end or the have the flap on the wrong side.

The seam of the flap will be handstitched.

Pin the flap an shown in the picture above.
In the picture above, the darker blue fabric is the outer fabric. We will only be stitching together the edges of the lining!.
It looks nicer in the end and you don’t want the flap to sit too tight.

This is how it looks when everything is stitched up nicely. you can now turn it and it should look like this:

Put your book inside and close the cover to marke the point where you want to put a button. Handstitch the button onto the cover and you’re done!

Here are some ideas/book cover I made lately:

I was featured at:

Refasion It! The Embellished Sweater {DIY appliqué}

January 20, 2013.Reading time 3 minutes.

Last week I went bargain hunting for some easy weekend upcycling projects. (I wrote about it in my “When a Crafter goes Shopping” post and explained my “method” of selecting the clothes.)

Now it’s time to share my first finished project with you: the embellished sweater.

When I saw Trash to Couture’s post a few weeks ago, I wanted to try a knock-off project.
Unfortunately I didn’t have any nice appliqués, so I postponed the project.

But when I went shopping last week, lucky me found a nice top with a faux leather insert. When I saw it I immediately had to think of the Trash to Couture DIY sweater, so I bought it. I also found a matching anthracite-coloured sweater that was even cheaper than the top.

The faux leather insert wasn’t embroidered, which wasn’t that bad since I had the beads and everything to do it myself at home.

I have to admit, as easy as it was, you need to have patience. A. Lot. Of. Patience.
I am normally not very much blessed with patience, but after weeks of essay writing and other assignments it was a welcome change.

I started with simply removing the faux leather from the rest of the top. The white fabric will be used for one of the next projects.

After trying different combinations, I decided to use some dark blue, brown and champagne-coloured beads that matched the sweater as well as the gold-brown faux leather.

To explain the embroidering part: A picture is worth a thousand words. This is a copy of a page of Burda Magazine. I know, it’s German, but the pictures are pretty self-explanatory.

I used the mannequin for pinning and basting the appliqué to the sweater.

After basting I handstitched the appliqué onto the sweater. Then I cut the remainder of the sweater on the inside, leaving a small seam allowance, and finished the seam to keep the knitted fabric from fraying.

I love how the sweater matches the petticoat I made a few months ago. Fortunately I still have some of the butterfly fabric left and will definitely make a pleated skirt out of it in the future.

chocolate bean pillbox {DIY in 15 minutes #3}

January 6, 2013.Reading time 1 minute.

Another DIY I did before Christmas: “anti-stress” and “anti-wanderlust” pillboxes!

All you need:

– tiny empty jars and bottles
– chocolate beans
– vintage printables + paper
– twine
– glue stick

chocolate bean pillbox DIY

I used a tiny jam jar and a mini brandy bottle that I cleaned and dried up thoroughly. I sorted the chocolate beans by colour, to make the two sorts of pills look differently.

For making the labels I used free vintage printables I found online. Here are some of my favorites:

– free collage sheets

– vintage grunge printables

I altered the label in Photoshop and gauged the correct size. Cut the label out and glue it on the lid or on the front of the bottle.

I printed out some pretty vintage tags, punched holes in them and tied them up with the twine.

Maybe you know someone that could need some anti-stress pills, anti-lovesickness medicine or frustration-protection?

Have fun!

knotted necklace {diy}

December 31, 2012.Reading time 1 minute.

I made this neckace months ago, but couldn’t post it since I made it for someone who reads this blog frequently for Christmas…well, here it is. It’s fairly easy to do, but it took me about 2-3 Gilmore Girls episodes until I had threaded all the beads. (Don’t ask how many – I didn’t count!)

I used three different colours of tube beads in random order.

I basically made two strings (each consisting of eight single strings) and knotted them together using the Double Carrick Bend and twisted the ends.

For the fastener I made a loop out of rocaille beads and used a bigger square-shaped bead on the other end. I used crimp beads to seal the end.

One string is a little longer than the other – thus the necklace/knot is slightly asymmetric which makes it look more interesting.

Have fun – oh, and Happy New Year! 🙂

Refashion It! Upcycling a Lamp with Handmade Paper

December 29, 2012.Reading time less than 1 minute.

I upcycled this old lamp from my parents today. Quick, inexpensive and pretty, such a fun thing to do! It took no longer than 30 minutes and all I used was a sheet of handmade paper bought in a stationary store and double-sided adhesive tape.

The paper was beautiful and not expensive at all.

Finding the right size for the pattern was a little tricky. Make sure your sheet of paper is big enough!

This post was featured: