Let’s get started with sorting some fabrics for the bookwrap. We’ve intended this project to be a scrap buster and we hope you’ll be able to source everything you need from your stash.

First up, you’ll need a piece of wadding/batting cut at least an inch larger than your pattern piece on all sides. We like to use a fine wadding but choose anything that you’re comfortable working with, hopefully you’ll have an off-cut in your stash.

Next you’ll need a backing fabric. We’re going to quilt and embroider later on, so any lightweight cotton is going to work for the backing. If you don’t have a piece large enough in your scrap bag, it’s OK to piece some together. We recommend cutting this larger by at least 2 inches on all sides than the measurements determined by your pattern piece made in the first week. After the stitching is done, we’ll trim back to size. The colour of this fabric doesn’t really matter, it will be seen as the lining, but won’t be on view when your book is in the wrap.

So that’s the wadding and backing out of the way. Now on to the fun part – fabrics for the front! We challenge you to work with a maximum of four fabrics for this project. Hopefully you can find what you need from your stash. Don’t worry if your fabrics don’t match your colour swatches exactly, they are just a guide, you don’t have to be a slave to them. I’m using hand dyed fabrics; they have quite a variation to them, some areas will be perfect, some won’t suit, but I’ll be able to cut out just the bits I need.

We’ve challenged you to use just four fabrics for this project, but using hand dyes or printed fabrics will give you a wider range of colour options if you need them – sneaky eh?

The proportions of each colour that you use will have a big impact on the visual outcome of your design. In your source image there might have been lots of one particular colour, and just accents of others. In your work you might choose to replicate that, or not, you’re the designer! I’m going to use the dark inky grey as my background colour so that’ll be quite dominant, but I think it’ll make a nice foil to the lighter and brighter colours we’ll be adding next week.

Here’s Linda’s selection of fabrics based on her inspirational source of the flowers in the vase. She’s going to piece two together as the background.

When you’ve settled on your background fabric, use your pattern piece as a guide and cut it to about 1″ larger on all sides. Layer it up with your wadding and backing and set it to one side for now.

That’s it for this week. We’ll see you next time with the three techniques we’ll use. See you then!

Love
Linda and Laura
xx

Thanks so much for joining in with us in our first Summer Stitch-Along. Please share what you’ve made in the Gallery or on Instagram with #designmatterstv