Merry Stitchalong - Week 1

Finally! It´s Monday! Welcome to the Tiny Toffee Stitchalong! 

I can´t tell you how happy I am to be spending the next few weeks with all you talented people and creating Christmas ornaments with you! We will be making some handmade treasures for the next five Mondays - to make this even more special let´s take a little tour through the beautiful village at North pole that Mr. and Mrs.Claus call their home. Today we will meet Mrs.Claus. She prepared some yummy gingerbread and a cozy seat on the front porch of her tea room. 

"Hello wonderful people from all over the world who want to share their love of handmade Christmas by sewing and creating together! Being Mr.Claus´ wife is a very busy but most wonderful thing. I have so many things to do and prepare before Christmas Eve and my dear husband got up with the snow chickens not only to feed the reindeer and take care of our village but also to read the hundreds of letters from children all over the world that arrive at our post office every morning. He always wants to make their wishes come true and if a kid asks for a blue train and our most silly elf went adventurous and painted it red instead he can get a little grumpy. His grumpiness never lasts longer than a minute because he is a very soppy giant. He would never ever throw one of the kids´letters away but instead he keeps them in a special book that is commonly known as "Santa´s Book". I do very often catch him flicking through this book with a big grin on his face. Today you get a chance to make a tiny version of this most precious book!"

Isn´t Mrs.Claus a very nice woman? I can remember when I was a little girl I wrote letters to Santa, a lot of letters...not only to send him a wishlist but also to tell him how much I liked Christmas and what cookies I would bake with my mom and what candy I found in my advent calendar. Such treasured memories - so let´s get started and making Santa´s book today!

Supplies:

- page 3 of the Christmas Delights PDF with the "letter to Santa" hexie template

-size reference and optional felt book cover details can be found right here

- ruler and pencil

- fabric scraps for the book 

- ribbon for the hanger and bookmark

- white felt for the book pages

- felt for decorating the book cover

1. Create your book pattern. This sounds more scary than it is! Our starting point is the top left corner of the envelope. Found it? It´s the one I marked pink in my picture. Now take a ruler and draw a line to the left, 5/8" long. Draw another line upwards, 3/4" long. Now we have the top left corner of the book shape rectangle. The total rectangle measures 4.5" x 3". Find the center and draw a line at 0.5" on each side of the center to create the spine. Refer to the photo, it will make things a lot clearer!

2. Choose your fabrics. You will need fabric for the book cover (front and back), a contrasting fabric for the spine and fabric for the inside of the book. I chose a bright linen for my inside because I wanted to embroider the year inside.

3. Now that we have created the pattern for sewing the book we will simply paper piece it like we would with the hexies (part 8 and 9 of the original envelope hexie template are still above and under the envelope but slightly longer now, part 10 is the spine and part 11 is the book back).When you are done trim the fabric all around the paper as I already included a seam allowance.

4. Cut the interior fabric piece as big as the book exterior (4.5" x 3"). If you want to embroider something inside now is the time to do so! Pay attention to what side you put your embroidery on as it will then either be in the front or the back of your book.

Once you are done with embroidering tiny little details to the outside and inside of your book lay the two pieces on top of each other, right sides together. Pin. Sew around it with a 1/4" seam allowance but remember to leave a 1 inch gap in the book bottom to turn the book right side out. Clip all 4 corners and turn the book right side out. Carefully pinch out the corners. Iron and then topstitch all around as close to the edge as you can. 

5. Cut a piece of white felt for the book pages, measuring 3.75 x 2.25". Also cut a piece of ribbon each for the bookmark and the hanger.

6. Fold your book in halves as if closing and crease to find the middle. Do the same with your felt. Lay the "open" book in front of you, inside facing you. Pin the bookmark just right next to the center crease on the right hand side of the crease. Do the same with the hanger. Place the white felt on top of it, matching the center creases. Sew down the center crease to secure all layers. 

7. Almost there! Close your book and sew right in the seam between spine and book cover. Done!

Next week...

...we are going to visit the florist. We will need some felt and the Christmas Delights hexie templates (you get to pick your favorite!). I will also show you how to get pretty perfect matching points on hexies that consist of different parts!

See you next Monday - I can´t wait!