What I Live For: Soft Baby Book

After I finished making this book, C held it in his chubby little arms while he fell asleep and all the time I spent on it was totally worth it! This is a great project to use up all those extra scraps of fabric lying around.

On a side note, I might be slightly addicted to appliqué, but it’s so much fun!
What you need:

4 pieces of fabric measuring 13x6.5 inches each. I used old denim.
Batting
Wonder Under or similar product
Appliqué patterns of choice
Scrap fabric to fit appliqué patterns. Use different textured fabric such as knit, corduroy, silk, felt.
Sewing machine and thread

1. Choose appliqué patterns and cut out each piece of the pattern separately. Here are the patterns I used:

Ball Applique


Elephant Applique


Truck Applique


Apple Applique


Duck Applique


Sailboat Applique

For the letters, I printed out an image of alphabet blocks backwards. For the dinosaur I used the pattern I drew for my no sew dinosaur shirt.

2. Cut out fabric with each of the pattern pieces and trace onto the smooth side of Wonder Under. It’s helpful to initial each piece to make it easier to figure out what it belongs to later.

3. Press rough side of Wonder Under to the wrong side of your scraps of fabric except for the apple leaf, elephant ear, sail and duck’s wing. Cut out along the lines.

4. Peel the backing off of Wonder Under and press to your main fabric. Follow the product’s directions for this step.

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5. Set your zig zag stitch to zero and sew around each pattern piece to secure it since babies will be playing with this. Or you can straight stitch about 1/8 inch from the edge of the shape.

6. For the elephant’s ear, sail and duck’s wing, cut out 2 pieces of each. Layer on top of a larger scrap of matching fabric and zig-zag stitch all 3 layers together. To make this easer and neater, you can use Wonder Under between the layers. Trim excess fabric.

You can skip this step and just sew all sides of these pieces to the fabric so they won’t flap up.

7. Place the elephant’s ear, sail and duck wing where desired, and setting zig zag to zero, only sew along the straightest edge, so the rest can flap up.

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8. For the apple leaf, I cut out a piece of green felt and sewed a straight line down the center of the leaf, so the sides can still lift up.

9. Place two of your sheets of fabric face to face, and add batting. Stitch together. Make sure to leave enough room to turn right side out. Trim the corners.

10. Turn right side out. Fold the opening in, and iron flat. Iron all edges for a neater look.

11. Sew along the edge, about 1/8 inch from the edge, to close the opening and make your book look extra nice.

12. Fold each page in half and iron to give a crease. Draw a straight line down the crease. Put the pages on top of each other and sew down that crease. You will be sewing through all four layers of fabric. Backstitch at the beginning and end so the stitches don’t come undone.