Book of Colors Tutorial

Just in case you didn't check out my guest post last week here is my color book tutorial.  I hope you enjoy making it as much as I did.  I would love to see your completed project so please share by joining my flicker group!


Please do not sell anything made from this tutorial it was provided free to you for personal use only.

Supplies

1/2 yard linen fabric
1 yard one-sided fusible interfacing
Scrap fabric (purple, red, pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, brown, black, gray, white)
Embroidery floss  (purple, red, pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, brown, black, gray, white)
Fabric Paint (purple, red, pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, brown, black, gray, white)
Freezer paper
X-Acto knife
fabric marker
small embroidery hoop
Printed word template
optional: plastic bag

Cutting directions-

Linen

(11)      8” x 8” – Pages

(1)        17” x 8” – cover

(1)        8” x 3.5” - spine

(10)      8” x 3” – binding

Interfacing

(10)      7.5”x7” - pages

(1)        16” x 7” – cover

Assembly Directions
Note: All seam allowances are 1/2’’.

1. Create and 8”x8” block for each of the 11 colors from your scrap pieces. Try to add at least one textural fabric to each page, I used minky, felt, fleece, and flannel to achieve this. In some cases I appliquéd additional fabric to the top of my block for added interest.

2. Trace each of the colors onto freezer paper using your word template. Following your traced lines,  cut out each letter with an X-Acto knife.

*helpful hint - Any letters that have little pieces like an 'e' that will need to be used leave them just slightly attached until your ready to iron so you don't have to worry about loosing the pieces

3. Iron a piece of freezer paper to the back of the page and then center the cut out word on the front of the page and iron it on. Make sure the iron is on a high heat setting so the wax makes a good seal to your page. Repeat for all pages.

4. Paint each word with it's corresponding color. Then let dry and heat set per paint bottle instructions.

*tip always heat set from the back of the fabric it keeps paint from transfering to the hot iron and ruining your project.

5.  From your word print out, cut out the book title to make a stencil, don't worry about keeping the inner detail.

 6. Center your stencil on the right side of your Cover fabric as in the example below

7. Use the stencil to draw out your embroidery lines

 8. Use a running stitch over the top of the outline.

9. Layout the book in order purple, red, pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, brown, black, gray, 

white.  

10.  With exception of the purple word page and the white scrap page. Put pages right side together in order (example purple scrap page goes with red word page, red scrap page goes with pink word page, etc.) You will only be sewing three sides. The side to the left of word must be sewn. Lay the pairs out and pin the one side that should be sew. 

Sew around the top, side and bottom of the page (1/2" seam allowance). I like to double check my measurements before sewing along the bottom- you want your pages to be 7 inches top to bottom and 7.5 inches from sewn to unsewn side edge. 

 Once three sides are sewn clean up you edges and snip the corners

11. Iron on the interfacing to the inside to your page. 

**Optional add plastic bag in some of your pages to make a crinkle page. (thank you Jennifer for this idea!)

12. Flip page right side out and iron

13. Bind your page edge.
First fold each binding piece in half and iron, fold down the top and bottom of each binding piece to make a 7"  strip,  pin to the unsewn side of the page and sew with a 3/8" seam allowance. Press seam. Snip page edges and fold in binding corners, pin in place.

Sew down. repeat for all pages 

14. Sew the spine (8"x 3.5")between your purple word page and your white scrap page. 

15. Put right side together with the cover and sew around the outside leaving a 3" opening for turning.
16. Trim the edges, clip corners and iron on interfacing

17. Turn right side out, iron, and hand stitch closed. 

18. Position 1st and last pages on your "book spine" making sure they will be covered when the book is closed. Put a pin where the page will need to be sewn in at the top and bottom. Use a ruler and draw a straight guide line down the cover.

19. Use a running stitch to attach the first and last page to the book. Use the corresponding color to the page you are sewing in.

20. Once the front and last page are sewn in place evenly divide the area between them among the 8 remaining pages. Draw guidelines again to keep your page and stitches straight. 

Sew in remaining pages.

Color Book and Smelly fish

I finished Micah's Color Book. Which has been on my long term to do list forever -- it really wasn't in my plans to make it now but I had time to raid Mums scrap bags so it moved itself to the top of the list! Mum tried to show me paper piecing which is really cool... but I ended up trying to use too many different pieces and being new to the process I ended up being lazy and gave up.

Here's all of the pages before I put the book together

And here it is put together. It's turned out pretty large I think it's about 7x8" and somewhere between 2-3" thick.
I embroidered the front page for texture and hand stitched each page to the cover.
I LOVE the way the spine turned out!
The color names are freezer paper stenciled
And I tried to do something different and funky with each patchwork page
I also tried to have some sort of texture fabric on each page.

I am really happy with how it turned out... especially since I didn't start this with any sort of plan I just let it evolve as I worked on it.
So I realized yesterday that I hadn't shown you all this awesome hat Sherie knit. Micah has the coolest aunt!
I mean who doesn't need a fish eating their head?
I think the one above will go in his photo album!
And this one is Ubers favorite. He's not super steady in his bumbo seat yet his daddy's been working on it with him... don't worry he is heavily supervised when we put him in it - Micah not uber... though I do tend to supervise his dad too!