Hardback Notebook Needlebook Tutorial

Remember these little books?

They're little needlebooks that look like hardback books ... cute right?  Well I went on a notebook making bender a few years ago but I've had a few requests for a tutorial on how to make these recently and, my apologies, it's taken me a while to get round to it, but here they are ...

For starters the ingredients ...

You will need:

8 pieces of felt measuring 9 x 6.5cm each
2 pieces of card measuring 10 x 7cm
1 piece of card measuring 10 x 2cm
1 piece of white paper measuring 9 x 16.5cm
1 piece patterned paper measuring 13 x 20cm
bradawl or something pointy
suitable adhesive (gluestick)
grubby old cutting mat or something you don't mind getting glue on

Notes:

• The white paper is regular printing paper.
• The card should be reasonably heavyweight but not corrutgated and recycled is fine
• The patterned paper is scrapbooking paper
• You can cover the book in fabric just make sure to use the right kind of glue

Right, onwards ...

I've used two colours of felt for this little book.  Start by pairing your felt pieces, one of each colour (or whichever way suits your chosen colours) and straight stitch around the edges.  Feel free to trim the edges of the felt afterwards so they're pedantically perfect, or you can just leave 'em as is.  Whatever!

Next bar tack all four 'pages' together on one of the long edges.  Place the bar tacks roughly 2cm in from each end.  If your machine won't manage the thickness you can hand sew this part.

Next line your stack of felt pages up with the 2cm strip of card and mark the position of the bar tacks.

Using the bradawl or something pointy that you won't hurt yourself using poke three holes on the marks you've made equally across the width of the strip of card and apply glue to the card strip between the holes only, leave the two ends unglued for now.

Fold the piece of white paper in half along the long edge to mark the centre and stick the strip of card in the middle.  You're going to need to stick your patterned paper underneath the white paper later, that's why it's important to not stick the white paper down at the ends yet.

Next up thread a needle with some strong thread and poke through the holes in your card strip to make holes in the white paper too.  Then stitch back and forth neatly to secure the felt pages in place.  Come up through the first hole at the top of the card strip, catch the bar tack between your first and second felt page and back through the same hole again, then move along to the next hole and repeat catching the bar tack between the second and third pages and so on.  Three or four stitches through each hole is plenty.  Repeat for the holes at the bottom of the card strip.

Next fold your piece of patterned paper in half along the long edge to mark the centre, apply glue to the back of your card strip and stick it in the middle of the patterned paper.  Apply glue to both the remaining pieces of card and stick them down firmly on either side of the card strip leaving a 0.5cm gap in between the spine and covers.

Trim off the corners of your patterned paper getting close to, but not touching,  the corners of the card.

Then work your way around the book, glueing and sticking down the over hanging patterned paper, making sure to fold the white paper and felt pages out of the way when sticking it down to the spine of the book.

Finish by glueing down the white sheet on the inside of the book.  Start close to the felt pages and press the white paper into the gap between the spine and cover pieces of card then carry on glueing out to the edge of the cover.

Then just fold your book closed and leave it somewhere safe over night to dry thoroughly.

Fill with pretty pins and you're all done.

These would make great gifts for a stitchy friend, you could even use a copy of a favourite photo or book page to cover the book to make it more personal.

This tutorial is for non commercial use only.  Feel free to make these for yourself or as gifts but not to sell.


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