Sunday, April 11, 2021

Hello Little One

Hello Little One has a special meaning for this grandchild. She was born January 11, but I had yet to meet her due to COVID-19 social distancing precautions. She is three months old now and I have just met her. 


This cloth book is made from a Bambi panel I bought at my very last quilt and craft show before COVID-19 put those gatherings on hold. The art work was so soft and gentle I thought I might cut apart the pages and make each into a quilt block. I changed my mind when I realized the quilt would be monotone and not as appealing to a child as I might hope. I decided to stay with its intended use as a cloth book. But I chose to add a bit of pizzazz by inserting some crinkle material within the pages. My youngest granddaughter's oldest sister loved that as a baby. I put crinkle within the inner pages only, not in the cover. Why you ask? A very logical reason. I made the cover first and forgot that was what I intended to do. Duh.



As I paged through the finished book I admired once again the delicate artwork. Although not very visible in the photos, the pages do alternate between pale and medium toned aqua.






I have made many cloth books but in my post for 3/24/13, I included instruction. Tips included

  • Rough cutting pages first
  • Stretching on bias to square up book
  • Leaving final precise cutting to do through all three layers with batting
  • Size of turning opening
  • Preferred edge crisping tool
  • Spine sewing process
As with most panels there is some surrounding fabric that contains printed instructions in black and white; but many panels also contain miniature color pictures as means of illustrating the finished product. I cannot bring myself to throw those out. For a while I considered how I could make the surrounding scraps from this panel into a rattle or a crinkly stuffed toy of some sort, but then stopped myself from going overboard. I folded them up and stored them away with my other scraps in their various disorganized locations. Besides these miniature instructional diagrams there is also often a border that runs around a panel. I save those, too.

Then I had an idea that I would like to revisit some day. People make T-shirt quilts to gather life time experiences. Perhaps I can gather these bits of miniature images from doll, animal, book panels and borders and make a Grandma baby memory quilt. I might have to appliqué each to a block, but I think I can rise to the occasion. Now I am about to make a mess, finding and gathering all those leftovers I was too chicken to throw out but too lazy to store logically. Sound familiar? The next collage is an indication of just how many of those scraps I have.

3 comments:

  1. We have quite the library of cloth books now, thanks to you! Do you ever find kits for really small, handheld cloth books? Those are great for small hands and in the car. The ones you have made for us are great for bedtime reading, though!

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    1. I have never seen small ones in a fabric panel but I found some 4" ones on Amazon that are coming your way. They have crinkly covers, too.

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  2. What lovely artwork on that book! I'll bet it was well received and well loved. And I'm glad you have an idea for all those project scraps now. Speaking as a recipient OF all those dolls, a memory quilt will be way easier to store than all those makes when the kids outgrow them - plus then you get to play with the scraps again as you organize.

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