I have known that social media was actively listening to me ever since the night at my knitting group when we were talking about squirrels and then the next day I was bombarded with videos of squirrels doing adorable stuff. So obviously when I became pregnant, the spying, suggesting, and shoving in my face of baby-related content was a given.
As a soon-to-be parent, you are served a plethora of advice and opinions. I won’t go into everything I saw (but please message me if you want to talk diaper company conspiracy theories!) but one thing did inspire a baby-related project - black and white books.
Newborns can’t see color so “high contrast” books are quite the rage. I added some to our registry but I also thought, hmm I could make one! And so I did! And it turned out to be the cutest thing ever.
At first I thought that I would just make some black and white patchwork blocks, which would be visually interesting, but wouldn’t actually teach the baby anything -per social media, babies must be learning at all times. So that’s how I got the idea to appliqué black shapes onto a white background. Fun to look at and will hopefully give babe a leg up during kindergarten admissions…
Never having made a fabric book before, I did some preliminary research and found this baby book tutorial. I used the recommended page measurements to cut my background fabric and used the construction instructions as a rough guide for final assembly. But to make the pages, I just let my imagination and intuition take the lead.
I started by cutting out eight basic shapes.
Then I appliquéd the shapes onto white fabric leftover from another baby quilt project.
Then I added a layer of batting to each page and hand quilted the pages using an “echo” stitch pattern similar to Hawaiian quilting.
After laying out the pages, I connected them with a strip of fabric, then sewed two units right sides together. I left an opening to flip them right sides out.
After the pages were assembled, I measured how thick they were, and used that as a guide to cut the spine fabric for the cover pages. Once the cover pages were assembled, I sewed the pages onto the spine.
It didn’t look very tidy, so I hand stitched a piece of matching fabric over the spine.
I love the finished project and so does my daughter! When she was first born she loved to look at the shapes and now that she is more active she enjoys turning the pages and chewing on them. As the book is constructed entirely out of cotton materials, it can be tossed in the wash anytime!
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We recently made a trip to Governor’s Island in NYC. It used to be a military base and now the whole island is basically a park. We enjoyed walking under giant oak trees, looking at old buildings, and of course, the view of Manhattan from the waterfront.
Well, time flies even more when you have a kid, right??? I’ve actually made several small things over the last few months and of course I still have some WIPs…
My next fabric book is in process and features some fussy cut characters!
I made some baby shoes!!! They are reversible and oh sew cute!!! I used this tutorial and traced out the pattern with the help of my projector.
I finished a mini Hawaiian quilt block that I had started in pregnancy…I think it will be destined for my quilt guild’s orphan block quilt.
My quilt guild also hosts a monthly Block Lotto drawing and these were my submissions for the April meeting. I missed the winning ticket by 1 number!!!
And so Olive wouldn’t feel left out, I made her a mat for her water dispenser with a sample block I made last year.
My daughter’s quilt is still not finished but I’m hoping to finish it in the next few weeks(months??? lol)!
Have you ever tried making a book? Let us know in the comments or reply to this email!
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