I’ve been a busy bee in my sewing room over the last couple of weeks, trying to clear the decks a bit! One project I have managed to complete is my alphabet of birds fabric book. I’ve been stitching the letters over the last ten months, I had a nice stack of embroideries, all I had to do was make them into a book.

Life would be much easier if I planned from the start how I would create the pages, rather than stitching them first and then trying to work out a method. I had stitched a back-stitch line round each page so having applied a square of interfacing to give a crispness to the pages it didn’t take long to whip-stitch the sides of each page together. I realised fairly quickly that despite trimming the corners and mitring them, then pressing with a clapper board, they were still bulkier than the middle of the edges. This meant that if I was not careful and just stitched the pages together, I could end up with an hour-glass shaped book!

I overcame this by stitching tiny beads in between the pages as I stitched. The corners were stitched firmly together but the sides were separated by a bead every cm or so. It worked and it looked pretty too when you opened the pages. It also meant the pages opened beautifully flat. So far, so good!

I made a cover using a pretty bird fabric and some bosal interfacing to stiffen it and give it body. I’ve used it quite a few times and it has always worked well. Having pressed the edges over of the cover, I stitched the two squares of lining fabric to the front and back pages, with the idea that I could then just stitch the lining to the cover and the book would be complete…

…only it didn’t sit right and was clearly going to be very difficult to stitch. Plan B was to stitch a lining to the front and back cover, leaving the inner edge unstitched so I could slot in the first lining piece. I managed to get it into the slot, clipped it together with some clover clips, but it still didn’t sit right. One thing I liked with the actual pages was how they sat flat when you opened it and that was lost with the spine attached.

Plan C was a bit more drastic, I cut the spine off the cover, found a nice titled selvedge to cover the cut side, aiming to have an exposed spine with the original front and back cover. Good plan but the covers were just a bit too big! As the bosal is ironed on it couldn’t be trimmed – I tried!

Plan D!!! I made another set of front and back covers, slightly smaller this time. I attached them to the pages with more beads…and it worked! It’s not perfect, but I’m happy! I tried doing my usual ribbon tie closure but it pulled the pages in too much in the middle and over time I would have a mis-shaped book.

I stitched a title for the front with a slightly darker DMC thread, I attached it with bondaweb, I would have preferred to machine stitch round it but I couldn’t get it in due to the bulk head of the sewing machine.

I’m really pleased with my book but I think I do need to plan ahead a little more! I think another time I may add a fabric border round each cross-stitch, just so they’re not as bulky in the corners. I do like the exposed spine with the beads though.

I’ve made a video of my book which is on Instagram, please follow the link if you want to see the whole finished book. https://www.instagram.com/p/Dc3pU7KgTkT/