Saturday, September 30, 2017

Second Placemat Fabric Book

So I received some gorgeous square placemats from my lovely niece a couple of years ago for Christmas. There happened to be six of them, and I hope she doesn't mind that I cut one in two to be a base for a fabric book. Placemats make a great base, because they're already two pieces of fabric sandwiching a thin layer of cotton quilted between them.

I used an old used quilted placemat for the first fabric book I ever tried, this being the second. It's worked out great. The padding gives the pages a sturdiness for working on, and if you don't like the color or pattern of the placemat, you can sew/glue another fabric, lace, etc. over it and go from there.

In my first book, I sewed a beige lace fabric over the pages before I sewed the book together, because that mat had a pretty side and a plain white side and I wanted a book of laces and frills.

This book is pretty on both sides (the colors are more vibrant than they appear here) and I'm not sure yet what the theme is going to be, or if I want more pages in it, so I haven't sewn it together yet. It has scalloped edges, which means when I cut it in two, one edge on each page is straight and raw, but that's an easy fix. I'll just add a ruffle, lace, or something to match my theme!


This is one side of the mat, brown with a little white leaf-like pattern...


The other side is a gorgeous paisley print in browns and golds with flecks of blue, so I have four book pages in each color. The mat happened to be a twelve inch square, so the double page is 6" x 12", and when it is folded and sewn, the book will be 6" x 6" square. Like this...


I haven't decided, for sure, on the embellishments, but I have a lot of ideas...


I chose the paisley side for the cover and am trying out different ideas to sew or hot glue on. The woman and gold shape came off an old Red Hat Ladies Society tee shirt that I had when mama and I were members. The lace is half a collar off an old dress left over from a church yard sale that I confiscated years ago. I knew it would come in handy one day! :D Not sure if I'll use it here or not though. Still pondering!


An old doily that mama crocheted and used when I was growing up. She gave it to me, along with some others she found when clearing out stuff, not long before she died. I can't bear to cut it up, but I might hand stitch it to a double page in some way...


or I might hand stitch it to the cover, like this. It will be where it can be taken off in one piece, in the event that someone wants to use it after I'm gone. It's a beautiful piece, and I love it, but don't use them on my furniture, which is why I want it where I can enjoy it as long as I am here. :)

If you want to see my first attempt at a fabric book, which is also still a work in progress, but much further along than this one, go to my sidebar, where it says labels, and click on fabric books. It should take you to the post of what I have so far.

Will share more when I figure out where I'm going with this book. To be continued...

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