CQJP2022....The Book......A Comedy of Errors......

When I set out to do this project I had no idea what the outcome would be. The rules said that the participants were to complete a 6-inch or larger crazy quilt block each month. 

I made mine 10 1/2 by 11 1/2 because I wanted to do the hearts and six inches didn't give me enough area to work on. The hearts themselves are 8 by 8 1/2. Now my first mistake was not making my background block larger and second not finishing the edges. The fabric I used frayed a lot.  My background blocks slowly lost their square shape. But I plodded on.

I soon realized that a wall hanging was not going to happen as the colours I used in each "block" didn't really all blend well together. So I decided since it was the Crazy Quilt Journal project that I would make a book.

My first plan was to add a matching piece of fabric for the back of the block and use that to bind the edges. It worked for my wall hanging but for a book it was a bit floppy. So I decided to add a layer of thin felt between the block and backing. It sounded like a good idea. 

Thankfully before I started to sew all this together I gathered my stuff and I piled it up to see how thick this "book" would be. It was massive and it soon became apparent that the hearts created a mound in the middle and the edges drooped. Pretty ugly. 

Plan B.

I sewed one block to a backing fabric and make a square pillow. I then cut a piece of thin cardboard to fit (I used cardboard from file folders that I had at hand) and inserted it into the pillow or pocket or whatever you want to call it 😀 UGLY!!! 

Plan C.

I unpicked my pillow and glued the edges only of the block to the cardboard...see pic.  I used Aleene's Original Tacky Glue. From my experience it's the best to use with fabric because of it's tackiness and it dries very fast.

Then I cut a second cardboard and glued the edges of the backing fabric to that. My plan was to sew both together using pearl cotton. The problem was I did such a good job stretching and gluing the fabric edges flat to the back of the cardboard that it was difficult to sew together. I had no leeway without bending the cardboard which I didn't want to do. 

Also this really screwed up my plan to sew the boards together at the spine side to make a book. In the end I decided to glue both pieces of cardboard together.

But before I did the gluing I had to figure out a way to sew my pages together. I had some tape in my stash that I've had for eons and luckily I had just enough. I cut the lengths I needed the did a blanket stitch along one edge. I then glued this tape to one of the cardboard sides. This gave me "loops" to sew the pages together. 

I then glued the block and it's backing together to make one page. Here are some of the pages finished. 

I wasn't all that happy when the pages opened though. Because each page is thick you could see the binding stitching. 

I continued with sewing the pages together but the end product wasn't really that great. The edges at the corners of the pages were thicker than the middle and there was no way to pull them tight and flat. 

Hmmmm. 

So I then unpicked all my stitching and then joined the pages together with ribbon and lace. That seemed to work. I used what I had at hand and tried to match it as best as I could to the hearts. 

I did end up dying some white lace and rickrack for the last three pages. 

I used Dye-na-flow by Jacquard. I buy the starter kit and mix the colours to get the colour I need. You use a few drops in a small amount of water and you can get great results. 

Here is the back using the ribbon to join the pages. I now have to figure out how to cover the back. 

The book so far. 

Added: I managed to make an end piece using the last scrap of my cover fabric. I had to use it on the bias and had just enough. I glued it to a piece of unbleached cotton for some stability. 

Done!!!!

Take care :)