Quiet Book: Page Ten (Last One)

This my friends is the last page I made in my quiet book. It was a fun one, and probably involved the most creativity/the one I made up the most.

I made the head and facial features out of felt like the rest of the pages. The neck/face I zig-zagged on like usual. For the facial features I used a blanket stitch (which I did before the face got zig-zagged onto the page). 

The hair I made by cutting pieces of yarn. I attached it in three places (with my machine): the middle, and also off to the sides (so her hair wouldn't fall in her face.

I used a piece of ribbon that I stitched to one end of the page, and attached at the other end with the standard velcro protocol (fuzzy side on the page, scratchy side off the page). However, I wish I had done this one the other way around. When you are trying to get the hair elastics off, they stick to the velcro, and since the ribbon will always stay in place (it doesn't completely detach), I didn't need to worry about the scratchy side of the velcro being exposed.

Along with the hair elastics, I included a few clips as well (but ones that were fairly flat so that the book could still close well).

I even did her hair for her when I was done.

Quiet Book: Page Nine

The next page I want to show you is my abacus page. Since I have a math degree, I felt I couldn't make a quiet book without including some sort of math. I chose to do a sort of abacus.

I used the thin green ribbon I had used on a few other pages, with pony beads strung on it, and then laid a thicker black ribbon across the ends, and stitched it down. Beside each of the "rungs" of the abacus I put the numbers with velcro attached.

Again I put the "fuzzy" side of the velcro on the page, and the "scratchy" side of the velcro on the piece that detached. I also made used two pieces of felt for each number. I sewed the velcro onto one (with interfacing on the other side, and I hand stitched the numbers to the other pieces. Then I stitched them together.

This was the only page where I repeated an attachment method. I had run out of methods and really wanted to do this page, plus my book needed another page, so I repeated, but I felt like it was different enough (matching numbers rather than colours). I also made the colours of the numbers alternate, so even if they weren't matching the numbers, they could do an a-b-a-b pattern.

Quiet Book: Page Eight

The next page I did was the ladybug page. It was the one I remember most from quiet books from my childhood. The pictures aren't great, so you'll have to bear with me.

The ladybug has a zipper in it. The zipper I got from an old pair of pants. I needed a fairly short one so that the ladybug could fit on the page. This was my first zipper, so I was a little unsure about what I was doing, but I attached the zipper first, and then everything else, so I think it was a little easier.

Inside the pocket were black dots to go on the outside of the ladybug. Because everything was felt, I didn't worry about a way to stick the dots to the outside of the ladybug. That way where they went wasn't dictated.

This was probably one of the easier pages...not too many pieces, or things to attach. I put the zipper in the red piece, after I cut a sliver out of the middle to make room for it, then I attached the red piece to the page, and then the black piece on top of that.

Only two more pages to go, plus putting it altogether. Thanks for following along.

Quiet Book: Page Seven

The next page I did was a flowers page. The focus of this page was the buttons.

For each flower I cut out two shapes out of the felt, and one out of the interfacing. I don't recall if I straight-stitched around the edges first, and then did the button hole, or did the button hole first. I do remember the button hole was a little tricky since there were multiple layers, and they would move around a bit.

I stitched the flower pot on before the stems, but if I were to do it again, I would do the stems first, or at least leave the top of the flower pot until after the stems, because then it would cover up the ends. I zig-zagged the flower pot on, and straight-stitched down the sides of the ribbon that I used for the stems.

The buttons I hand stitched on. I went through my button stash, and two other friends as well, to find buttons that were the same size, so the buttonholes could be all the same size, and it wouldn't matter which flower went where. After that I just had to button the flowers on to the page.

Quiet Book: Page Six?

My grandparents were visiting for the weekend, and it was really nice to see them, except I got in trouble from my gramma for not posting enough on my blog. I have a project I am working on right now, but I haven't photographed it, so I thought I'd go back to finish posting about my quiet book. It's been so long since I made it, or posted about it, that I have forgotten the order of the pages, so let's just pretend that this was the next page in the book.

The focus of this page was colours. The balloons attach by velcro. I again had to think through what needed to be attached when. For each colour, I cut out three identical balloons. To one, I attached the loop (or soft) side of the velcro, and then zig-zagged it to the page. This was so that if it did not have the other part of the balloon attached to it, it wouldn't be rough, or stick to the other page. With the other two balloons, I attached the hook (or scratchy) side of the velcro to one (with interfacing on the underside), and then straight stitched the so-far untouched balloon to the other side, in order to cover up the stitching from attaching the velcro.

After that, all I had to do was to make the strings. I hand-embroidered them with black thread. I think that is really all there is to say about them.

So, there you go gramma. It's not a new project, but it's a new post. I think I still have four more pages to post about. Hopefully it won't take so long for me to post next time.