Handmade Christmas Gifts — Journal Covers

I’m back with anoth­er tutori­al as part of the Quick & Easy Hand­made Gifts series with some speedy journ­al cov­ers.    I wanted some­thing I could make really quickly so that I could tick the teach­er gifts off my list and these simple cov­ers do exactly that.

SheQuiltsAlot Book Cover Tutorial

Here’s what you will need:

  • 1 hard cov­er journ­al book
  • 2 fat quar­ters, 1 for the out­side and 1 for the spine and lining
  • Fus­ible interfacing
    1. Start by meas­ur­ing the height of the journ­al and then the width right around.   This journ­al is 8 12″ tall and 12 12″ around.    Add 34″ to each of these meas­ure­ments to determ­ine the sizes you will need to cut.     For these par­tic­u­lar journ­als I need the pieced cov­er and lin­ing to be 9 14″ x 13 14″ (8 12″ + 34″ = 914″, etc).
      Journal-Cover-2
    2. Refer­ring to the cut­ting dia­gram below cut:  2 — 6″ x 9 14″ and 2 — 3 12″ x 9 14″ rect­angles from the cov­er fab­ric.  1 — 9 14″ x 1314″ rect­angle, 2 — 3 12″ x 9 14″ and 1 — 2 12″ x 9 14″ rect­angles from the lin­ing fab­ric.    You will also need 1 — 8 34″ x 12 34″ rect­angle cut from the fus­ible interfacing.
      BC-Tutorial-9
    3. Using a 14″ seam allow­ance join the 2 12″ x 9 14″ lin­ing fab­ric to the 2 — 6″ x 914″ cov­er fab­ric rect­angles.    Press seams open.   Trim to 9 14″ x 13 14″ and then fuse the inter­fa­cing to the wrong side of the cov­er pan­el with a hot dry iron.
    4. To make the inside pock­ets that will hold the journ­al in place take 1 of the 3 12″ x 9 14″ rect­angles cut from the cov­er fab­ric and 1 of the 3 12″ x 9 14″ rect­angles cut from the lin­ing fab­ric.     Place them togeth­er with right sides facing and then sew down one long side.   Press the seam open and then fold in half so that wrong sides are facing and give it a good press. Repeat with the remain­ing 3 12″ x 9 14″ rectangles.
      BC-Tutorial-3
  1. With raw edges aligned place the pock­ets on to the right side of the lin­ing fab­ric as shown.   If you like you can pop a couple of pins on each pock­et to hold them in place.BC-Tutorial-4
  2. Pop the cov­er pan­el right side down on top of the lining/pocket panel.
    BC-Tutorial-5BC-Tutorial-6
  3. Using a 14″ seam allow­ance sew around the journ­al cov­er start­ing and end­ing on one short side.  Back­stitch at the start and end.  Make sure you leave a 3–4″ gap so you can turn it right side out when your done.  Trim the corners and then turn right side out and give it a good press then hand stitch the open­ing closed.

My cat lov­ing daugh­ter picked this fab­ric out for her favour­ite cat lov­ing teach­er, let’s hope Ms Brown’s love of cats extends to journals!

Book-Covers-5

With two kids I needed a few of these so I made a more with some fab­ric strips I had in my scrap bins.  I pieced the strips in one 9 14″ x 12″ rect­angle then chopped it in half before adding the spine to the centre of the cov­er pan­el and inter­fa­cing to the back.

SheQuiltsAlot Book Cover Tutorial

All done in the nick of time since the high school­er fin­ishes today and our young­est next Fri­day.   Phew!   Fin­gers crossed this week­end provides some sew­ing time so I can get some more gifts made.

Have a great week and, for every­one in the USA, I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Signature

One thought on “Handmade Christmas Gifts — Journal Covers

  1. I love this tutori­al; so easy to fol­low. I’ll be mak­ing a few of these for gifts this year for my work col­leagues. Thank you.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.