Max's Quiet Book

The first quiet book that I get to share with you this week is actually one that I made myself. My brother and his family were in town earlier this year, and my nephew had his first birthday while he was here. I knew that I wanted to make him a quiet book, but I also didn't have much time to make one (since we were doing things every day with my whole family).

So, to speed up the process of making a quiet book, I altered my usual quiet book techniques in a few ways. First, and this was the biggest time saver, I only made four pages. Less pages naturally equals less time. Secondly, I used velcro (and not snaps) to attach the detachable pieces. Snaps (since they're hand sewn) take longer to attach than velcro (which can be machine sewn or hot glued). Third, I hot glued all of the velcro pieces, on to the quiet book pages themselves and on to the detachable pieces. Hot gluing the velcro, instead of sewing it, saved a lot of time. I made sure that it was very sturdy and well attached. Fourth, I hot glued all the details. I sewed the main pieces on to each page - the tree and basket, boat, jellyfish, and dinosaur body - but hot glued the jellyfish's face and spots and the dinosaur's face on.

One thing I did with this quiet book that actually took more time, but was totally worth it, was sewing a cover. With my previous quiet books I've simply sewn button holes in the sides of the pages and then attached all the pages with binder rings. Not this time. This time, I cut a piece of fabric from a big, old t-shirt, laid the pages down on it, pinned it everywhere, and sewed. I sewed the front and end pages directly onto the cover, and the middle page I sewed to the middle of the cover by leaving some extra felt on the side of the page, and sewing that side of the page to the cover. (I'll show this with pictures at the end.) And I love it! The book is all one piece, all attached, and since the cover is made of t-shirt fabric it is super soft and nice to touch.

So, without further ado, here is my nephew Max's quiet book!

The apple tree page:

Noah's ark, with finger puppets (um, I only had time to make one finger puppet by his birthday...I'm going to make him more, I promise!)

The main body of the ark is a big pocket for finger puppets. I sewed around the top of the pocket (using a little thread design my sewing machine offered) to reinforce the edge. That way the felt won't get too stretched out when children used the pocket. I did the same thing with the basket on the apple tree page. (I also sewed some detail on the ark's roof, using another thread design setting on my sewing machine.)

The jellyfish page:

And dinosaur page:

Now here's a bunch of shots of the cover and the binding:

How the middle page is attached to the center:

I really like how it turned out, and I hope Max and my brother and sister-in-law like it too!

Interview 
(is it really an interview if I'm asking myself the questions?)

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence. 
I'm Jocelyn! I'm a homemaker and I like making stuff.

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they? 
My nephew, who just turned one year old.

What's your level of sewing experience? 
Intermediate.

How long did it take you? 
Ooh, tough question. I was totally going to mark down exactly how long it took me so I could tell you guys, but...I forgot. So, I'll just have to give you my best estimate. I worked on it at nighttime for a couple weeks. All told, I would guess about 14 hours?

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found? 
I actually used my own templates for the apple tree page and the dinosaur page (you can get them by clicking on those links). I didn't use a template for Noah's ark, just kind of winged it after looking at a lot of pages for inspiration. My jellyfish page was based on this jellyfish page.

How did you bind your quiet book? 
I cut a big piece of fabric out of an old t-shirt to use as a cover. I sewed the first and last page directly on to the fabric (I turned in and sewed the fabric edges under the felt so that the edges are nice and clean). I sewed the second and third pages back to back, leaving room on the side of the page. I used that extra room to sew those pages directly to the cover as well, in between the two end pages.

What material are the pages made out of? 
Felt.

What other materials did you use? 
Velcro, thread, and ribbons.

How much did all the supplies cost you? 
I already had most of the supplies, and the extra supplies I needed (I think just velcro, and a page or two of felt) only cost me a couple dollars.

What's your favorite page? Why? 
I think the jellyfish, because it's so colorful and happy.

And that's my newest quiet book! I hope you enjoyed it. :)

Linking up to:

Have you made a quiet book that you'd like to share? Click here for instructions on how to submit your own quiet book!