Quilting Book Cover

I quite enjoy doing stitcheries and took this one away with me when we travelled around the East Coast a couple of years ago.  Called “Stitching – I love it”, it is a design by Jacqui Tegal and was published in Country Threads magazine volume 5, number 12.  Once completed, it sat lonely and forgotten in my sewing basket.  

My stitchery block

This stitchery was designed to be part of a cushion, but I had other ideas for it.  I decided to turn it into a book cover – and I had just the fabric to use with it.  My friend Elaine had sent me a piece of the most delightful fabric one birthday, featuring cats running wild in the sewing room.  (Elaine and her husband are caravanning friends from Australia, and it is thanks to my influence that Elaine took up patchwork and quilting, she likes to say).  But how to go about it?  I had a general idea and had seen journals with padded covers, although  I was using a larger lever arch folder.  After a bit of “thinking time”, I decided to bag out the feature fabric, lining and pellon.  Then I  turned the ends around the  folder as pockets, and stitched through.  It  doesn’t look too bad, but perhaps there is a neater way.

Covered folder

Back view showing cat fabric

My daughter made me this pretty covered ring binder book some years ago with a nice little cross stitch on the front, although this book is much narrower than the one I have just covered.  This was such a pretty gift and it is a shame that I have not started making use of it before now.

Made by my daughter, and still unused

I feel really guilty that I have not put my quilting history in order up to now.  All my photos and notes about the various quilts I have made have been pushed in a plastic bag and just left.  I have finally started work dealing with a few of the many quilt photos and fabric samples that have been tucked away.  Each story needs to be put in words,  the why, when and how behind each creation.  Guess this is going to be a long job, and I started with the story of my padded book cover, and have gone on to do about ten stories so far.  Once printed, I attach my fabric samples to the page with a blue Magic Dot or two, and place my page(s) inside a plastic pocket – to pop inside the lever arch.  Luckily we have an excellent scanner and colour printer, which makes the process much easier, although at the rate I’m going, I’ll be using up all the coloured ink cartridges.

How do others file their quilt histories, by date of completion or by category?  Do you use separate pages, like I am doing, or perhaps write things up in a journal?  I thought I would use my daughter’s book for items like cushions, bags and table runners, and file the quilt stories in my larger folder.  And for those who are interested, I’ve been quilting since the mid 1990s, so I’m a bit late starting this quilt history project, wouldn’t you say?