Yankee's Quiet Book

Today's quiet book comes to us from Yankee, and it is so cute.

The front cover has a name sewn onto it, along with a car that has a little pocket. Peppa Pig and her family are finger puppets that fit into the pocket and look like they're driving in the car.

The book opens up to show a car page with several adorable little vehicles, including an ambulance and a fire truck, and several road signs (like a traffic light, stop sign, etc.). Across from the car page is a laundry page with a washing machine, lots of clothes, a clothes line, and socks that velcro off the page.

Next Yankee has a clock page with colorful numbers and moveable hands, and a shoe-tying page where children can practice making a bow.

Next comes one of my favorite pages - Cookie Monster! Cookie Monster's mouth zippers open and you can pull out a lot of cookies, each of which has a different number of chocolate chips sewn on top. These match to numbers on the next page, for children to practice counting and number recognition.

The next page is absolutely adorable, too. It's a nature scene with an apple tree (whose apples you can pick and put in a basket) and several animals to play with - a cow, giraffe, elephant, and lion. Opposite the apple tree page is an alligator (or crocodile) with a bird on his nose and a zipper mouth. Underneath him in the water there are several fish that can velcro off the page and go inside of his mouth.

The last pages in the book are a flower page and a shape page. The flowers can button on and off of their stems and store in the flower pot. The shapes page has ridiculously cute shapes (I love how they're puffy/stuffed) which velcro off and can be matched the their embroidered shapes on the page.

It is an adorable book and looks so fun to play with. Thank you for sharing it with us, Yankee!

 

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

Tiffany's Animal Quiet Book

Good morning! The quiet book I get to share with you today is so cool. Made by mom Tiffany for her son, each page features a different animal. These pages are all really original and cute; I haven't seen any like them before. And they're so detailed and well made! They would be so fun to look at and touch with a little one - I know both my baby and toddler would love this book. They're all awesome, but if I had to pick one, I'd say my favorite page is the tiger. He's just so cute!

Enjoy!

 Interview

What's your name? Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they? 
My name is Tiffany; I made this quiet book for my 1 year old son.

What's your level of sewing experience?
I don't have a lot of machine sewing experience. I've just played around until I like the results. I do a lot of hand sewing.  

How long did it take you?
The book took approximately 3 months/90 hours from start to finish only working on it an hour or so a day.

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found?
I looked on Google images for pictures of different animals and then free hand sketched the animal. After free handing the animal picture I sketched out backgrounds.

How did you bind your quiet book? 
For binding the book, I machine sewed the pages onto a strip of fabric and then sewed it to the cover.

What material are the pages made out of? 
The pages are made from felt and embroidery thread.

How much did all the supplies cost you?
The supplies cost approximately $10.

What's your favorite page? Why?
My favorite page is probably the horse. I made a mistake with his eyes but managed to make it look like it was done on purpose by adding a bumblebee.


Tiffany, thank you so much for sharing your adorable quiet book with us!

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

Hannah's Baby Quiet Book

Today's adorable felt baby book comes to us from Hannah of Sunburnt Strawberry. It's kind of a "safari" themed book - each page has a different wild animal to look at and to play with. I love the cover - the really cute lion with all the fun ribbons is just so happy and welcoming. I also really like how the antelope is attached to the page with elastic, so that he can leap across the grasslands. Anyway, each of the pages is so cute and I'm sure you'll enjoy them all!

Interview

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence.
My name is Hannah, I'm a science teacher in my first full year and I find crafty stuff that keeps my hands busy is a great way to de-stress.

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they?
I made this quiet book for my godmother's third baby. He is nearly 3 months old. It's something a bit personal for a new baby that she won't have from the first two, and all new babies deserve things made with love.

What's your level of sewing experience?
I would say fairly low. I do a lot of reading pretty thing blogs and wishing I could make the amazing things they do! I tend to make it up as I go along though and all the sewing in this is REALLY simple, just blanket stitch and whip stitch which is about my limit!

How long did it take you?
Errm... Probably about 5 weeks but I only worked on it when I had a bit of free time, maybe 12 hours? But that's just a guess, it mostly occurred while watching TV with a glass of wine!

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found?
No, I google image searched each animal's name and "clip art" art picked something cute with out twiddly awkward bits. I got inspiration from lots of places including One Lovely Life's felt baby book which gave me the croc, lion and monkey ideas.

How did you bind your quiet book?
I back stitched through all the layers of felt and then trimmed the excess. I used two small pieces of scrap to cover the top and bottom of the spine and wrapped the back cover over the spine so everything was nice and smooth and sewed in down at the front. That sounds confusing but hopefully the pictures help!

What material are the pages made out of?
All the pages are made out of half a sheet of craft felt. The slightly smaller coloured squares had the animals attached and then they were sewn to the black felt so that it formed a border. I made sure I didn't use the same coloured square twice.

What other materials did you use?
Everything is felt because it's so easy to work with. I also used a white zip I already had for the crocodiles teeth, brown wool for the zebras mane and tail, all sorts of scraps of ribbon from my stash for the lion, thread and embroidery floss. There is a tiny smudge of black fabric paint on the end of the banana.

How much did all the supplies cost you?
£2.00 for the 4 sheets of black felt and 75p for the zebra felt, everything else I already had. If I had bought the other supplies I reckon it would have come to under £10.

What's your favorite page? Why?
I love them all! I love the little green fish inside the crocs mouth and the colourful pop of the yellow elephant page next to the blue zebra page.

To see more pictures and learn more details of Hannah's baby book, visit the page on her blog here: Sunburnt Strawberry: Felt Baby Book. She also has a church quiet book with a post about its construction, so check that out too!

Thank you so much for sharing your adorable quiet book with us, Hannah!

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

Kaitlyn's Name Quiet Books

I love quiet books that spell out a child's name on the pages. They're such a cool keepsake - fun to look at and play with when the child is little, and a tender reminder of someone's love for them when they're older. Today's post features two name books made by Kaitlyn of Creatv.ly - and they are stunning. The detail that she put into each page is really just beautiful, and I find myself wishing that I had such talent. : ) I think my very favorite page from these books is the hummingbird one - I just love the bird and the flower! But it's hard to pick a favorite when there are so many awesome pages here. Enjoy!

Mason's Name Book:

Charlie's Name Book:

Interview

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence.
My name is Kaitlyn. I'm a wife, a mom of two young boys, a photographer, a crafter, a minimalist, and a CrossFit-er.

Who did you make these quiet books for? How old are they?
I made both felt books during my pregnancies for my two boys. Mason was born July 2008 and Charlie was born September 2010. They still like to look at the books at ages 4-1/2 and 2-1/2.

What's your level of sewing experience?
My mom started teaching me how to sew when I was about 8 years old. I sewed costumes, dresses and doll cloths throughout my adolescence. In my late teens I learned how to sew quilt tops. I often use patterns, but I have also been known to make my own patterns as well. I learned how to embroider when I was about 12, but didn't really get into it until later in my teens when I made my first crazy quilt. The fancy embroidery was my favorite part and reminded me of my great-grandmother.

How long did it take you?
The first quiet book I made took several months to complete. Mostly because I had to take a lot of breaks. I used fabric glue to tack all the felt pieces down before I started embroidering, and later learned that fabric glue plus several layers of felt is almost impossible to hand-stitch through. I ended up using a pair of pliers to push and pull the needle through the felt, and bent several needles in the process. It was so difficult to finish, I swore I would never make another one.

When I found out I was pregnant with my second son, I decided to make another quiet book. By then I had learned about fusible webbing (aka Wonder-Under), and I was able to work much faster. I completed the whole thing in about two weeks, working on it a few hours each day (mostly during nap time).

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found?
I made my own templates for both books. I drew my designs out on printer paper, and then cut them up into pattern pieces. I never had any intention of turning them into actual patterns, but after I finished the second book, I started getting inquiries about my patterns, and eventually I was persuaded to complete the alphabet and turn all my hand drawings into digital patterns. My patterns can now be purchased on my website at http://creatv.ly/shop/.

How did you bind your quiet book?
First,  I blanket-stitched around the edges of my pages. Each page is made up of two single felt sheets placed wrong sides together. Once all the pages were stitched, then I sewed through the blanket stitching of all the pages on one side to turn it into a book. It's kind of hard to explain in words, so a few years ago I made a video tutorial. It can be found at http://creatv.ly/felt-book-binding-tutorial/.

What material are the pages made out of?
I LOVE felt, and used it for all the pages!

What other materials did you use?
As I mentioned earlier, I started using Wonder-Under to fuse the felt pieces together. I also used cotton embroidery floss for all my stitching; and buttons, beads, yarn, sequins, and ribbon as embellishments.

How much did all the supplies cost you?
I don't remember the exact cost, but we were poor college students at the time, and I tried really hard not to spend a lot of money on it all. I used the cheap Eco felt you can find in precut sheets at the craft store for 25 cents per page. I also had a lot of stuff on hand, but I did have to buy some of the embellishments and embroidery thread.

What's your favorite page?
In Mason's book, my favorite page is probably the giraffe. I have a thing for buttons, so it was fun to get to use so many on one page. In Charlie's book, my favorite page is definitely the crab. The bubbles and beading on the sand are just so eye catching.

To see more details of Kaitlyn's quiet books or to find the patterns in her shop, check out these links on her blog:

• Mason's Felt Name Book
• Charlie's Felt Name Book
• Felt Alphabet Patterns, Animals (Basic)
• Felt Alphabet Patterns, Animals (Expanded)
• Felt Alphabet Patterns, Objects
• Felt Alphabet Patterns, Combination Pack

Kaitlyn, thank you so much for sharing your quiet books, templates, and tutorials with us!

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