paper, fabric, or both? (Outside the Box with Jenn)

This month I’m celebrating my #oneword “give”. I’m so glad to have you along for the journey. To read more about my #oneword adventure for 2013 click here. Check out the links at the bottom of this post to read more about other “giving” situations!

Today I’m giving you another cool tutorial!

Project Tutorial: Fabric Notebook Paper

What we’ll be making: In today’s tutorial, we’ll be making a basic fabric notebook paper that can be used in any number of ways. When the deadline for the Limited Edition Sketchbook Project loomed and my book was still blank, I started to panic every time I opened up the book to the blank pages! I couldn’t get past the blankness and wished I just had some notebook paper so I could sketch while I talked on the phone or sat in long meetings. I decided to have some fun and create a quilted set of pages. The directions are rather basic but you’ll really need a sewing machine to pull it off. You can get by with just a simple stitch on the sewing machine (straight and zigzag.) So, if you don’t have one, you can just borrow a friend’s.

Materials

Fabric scissors
White cotton
Heavyweight interfacing
Quilt batting
Sewing pins
Sewing Machine
Thread (white, pink and blue)
Fabric pens
Iron and ironing board
Ruler

Estimated Time: 30 minutes to 1 hour

Let’s Do It!

Step 1. Decide how many pages you want and what size you want them to be. I wanted 5 finished pages (The middle 3 pages were folded in half and sewn to each other and the first and last page were attached to the book cover so I needed 8 x the book width plus 4 inches for turning/sewing.) Cut a piece of interfacing, quilt batting, and fabric to this width x your chosen height. (My pages were about 1/2 inch shorter than my cover.)

Step 2. Layer the interfacing, batting and fabric to make a sandwich and pin together to keep it from slipping.

Step 3. Time to sew. Put the blue thread in the machine and use a straight stitch to start sewing the lines on the fabric notebook paper. I started in the middle (you’re stitching the long way here!) When you get to an end, turn 90 degrees and sew up a couple stitches, then turn 90 degrees again to start stitching another row. Continue stitching until you have sewn all your blue lines. Remember to leave a little more white space at the top—just like notebook paper.
Step 4. Now is a good time to iron! Just iron it nice and flat, and enjoy your sewing prowess. Then cut off the extra 4 inches (2 inches on either side) that you allowed for turning/sewing.

Step 5. Use the iron to help you make the one long piece into a folded book signature. It’s easiest to start in the middle. Use a ruler to measure your pages if needed.

Step 6. With a pinkish-red thread in your sewing machine, sew the quintessential stripe down the pages. Note that you’ll actually be swing pages together in this step. Pages 2 and 3 will become 1 page, pages 4 and 5 will become 1 page, and pages 6 and 7 will become one page.