Quilted Idea Keeper Tutorial

I've been wanting a little notepad to keep in my purse so that I can jot down project ideas when I have them, and to keep fabric swatches in case I should . . . happen to find myself in a fabric store with a buck to spend! Here's a little photo tutorial about how I made mine. You can make it as big or as small as you'd like - just make it small enough to fit in your purse!

If you make one, I'd love to see photos!

 I started with this sketch. You could really start with any simple shape

Took a few notes and made a few sketches of how i thought I could make the thing!

Sketch and cut out your template from heavy cardstock or template plastic. 

You can see mine's about 4" tall.

To start, you'll need 4 pieces of fabric (2 contrasting colors) and 2 pieces of heavy interfacing, each slightly larger 

than your shape template, and 2 lengths of ribbon, each about 7" long.

Sandwich a piece of interfacing between 2 contrasting pieces of fabric, wrong sides together.

Starting in the middle of the sandwich, quilt the sandwich together. I just did very tight, 

parallel stitching back and forth, but you could do any design you like.

See?

Cut any interior details out of your template.

Trace these interior elements on the wrong side of the fabric piece 

you want to be the front cover of your book. Cut them out.

Place a scrap of the contrast fabric behind the cutouts, and 

embellish as you'd like. I put my initials in it. Then layer/pin the fabric 

sandwich the same way you did before, trapping the scrap in between the 

top piece of fabric and the interfacing. Quilt.

Place the main shape template on top of both quilted rectangles. 

Cut out the shape from both. Topstitch around the outside edge of both. 

Tuck under one end of each ribbon, and topstitch one to the outside 

edge of both the front and back covers.

Use your template to cut out the interior book pages: 4 pieces of batting, 

and about 10 sheets of cardstock and 15 sheets of graph paper. 

Or anything else you want!

Layer the top cover of the book over top of the graph paper 

and cardstock. I held mine all together with a binder clip.

Sew along the left edge through the front cover and the paper layers. 

You'll have to use your handcrank to do this, but you can do it!

This is what the bottom of the stack will look like after sewing. 

Mine's messy. Whatever. No one will ever see it!

Layer the back cover with the batting, and stitch 

along the right edge. This should be easier to sew.

Now put the book together and clip together with a binder clip.

Using a pretty heavy-duty hand sewing needle and a double-thickness of 

thread, whipstitch the book together along the left-hand edge, like a book. 

Don't try to stitch through the paper - just stitch through the back cover, 

through the batting, and through the front cover.

Tie your ribbons and you're finished! It actually looks 

very much like my sketch, so I'm happy!

Woohoo! All done! Pin in some swatches and get sketching!

Happy stitching!

Kelly