Have you ever left a craft or quilting store with fabric you just couldn’t live without but had no idea what you’d use it for? Perhaps you eco-dyed some cotton and love the results, but aren’t sure what to do with it. There are a lot of ways to include commercial or hand-decorated fabrics in handmade journals! Last month in the Handmade Book Club, we focused on fabric book covers. We’ve talked a lot about how to make your own book cloth, but this time I demonstrated how to use interfacing, which I particularly like because it gives some structure to the material you’re using. I also showed three different finishing options for the covers: Pinking Shear, Blanket Stitch, and Machine Stitch.
Club members had the freedom to select their preferred binding from the archive catalog for this project. I opted to use the Holiday Bows binding for the Pinking Shears finish (top) and the Machine Stitch (bottom). The center book has a Chain Stitch binding with a Blanket Stitch finish.
See What the Club Members Made
March’s Inspiration Gallery was brimming with beautiful fabric covers, techniques, and bindings! Check out what some of our club members made! (PS. Several of these books were created by new club members!)
I adore the quilted effect of Sue B.’s fabric book covers! Sue slow-stitched them by hand, and she incorporated gel print signatures from paper she recently made. And how cute is that bird on Brenda’s book?! (She used a technique we learned from one of our recent guest artists, Buffy Greer.)
Sue W. is one of our new club members! She used Tim Holtz Elementz fabric on Fast 2 Fuse interfacing and opted for the Hourglass Binding for her gorgeous journal. Genie is also a new club member, and she did a stunning job on all three of her journals!
Janice used coordinating bird and egg fabrics for her book covers. And she pointed out how her Holiday Bows binding looks like bird tracks! I love it! Sally created her journal with cotton fabric & thread, acrylic paint, and 160 gsm mixed media paper.
All three of these books were created by new club members! Lindy used cotton, paper, paint, RIT dye, coffee, embroidery floss, and commercial papers for her project. I was also wow’ed by Denise and Jenny’s Blanket Stitch book covers!
Lisa used old pieces of fabric she had on hand and beautiful deckle-edged papers.
Rebecca incorporated a fabric fat quarter, a Kraft-tex closure, and an adorable bee token. Diana used hand-dyed cotton fabric, which was painted and stamped with ink, machine stitching, sari ribbon, and up-cycled paper signatures. Debby used hand-dyed fabric and hand-dyed ribbons!
Ginny’s striking books really show off all three of the fabric book cover finishes! Marianne’s beautiful cover was constructed from scraps of Japanese fabric she had left over from a jacket that she made!
I’m so smitten with the fabric Maerle chose for her journal cover. Kelly got really clever by incorporating a popsicle stick with washi tape as part of her closure! Laura used gorgeous fabric, drawing paper, and recycled buttons.
Our Handmade Book Club members had so much fun with fabric last month! Next time you see that fabric that you just can’t live without, may I suggest you turn it into a book cover!
What is the Handmade Book Club?
The Handmade Book Club grew out of my love for teaching and community. Having spent more than 10 years teaching in-person classes, I decided to reach a wider audience in 2019 and founded the online Handmade Book Club.
The Handmade Book Club is a community of bookmakers from around the world. Each month, I teach a new book binding project to the club members. In addition to making books, we love learning about ways to fill our handmade journals. That’s why we have guest artists and speakers join us every month! Club members also have access to a robust selection of past projects within the archives.
Whether you’re an experienced bookmaker or a complete novice, the Handmade Book Club is a community for you. You can try out a free book project here.
We’d love to have you join us! Sign up for the waitlist!
Oh I am tickled “pink” you included the books I made amongst all these wonderful artistic books. It is always fun to follow along with your instructions.