A year of Fabric Books

Sometime between Christmas and New Year 2022 I was trying to think of an idea for us to teach at our Thread House Retreats. We were focusing on hand sewing and slow stitching with a number of different techniques and I came up with the solution of making a fabric book with all our sample pieces.

I started this year with some sample pages using very simple applique shapes and embroidery embellishment. These first few flower designs were an instant hit!

And then when I turned these into my first stitchy scrappy book their popularity increased!

I wrote this blog post about it in January and shared this first fabric book.

Then we launched The Thread House Academy and I chose to teach Keepsake Fabric Book as part of our Sustainable Sewing third term.  Finally it’s time for this class to happen and tickets went on sale last Friday!

I thought it would be nice to look back on all the fabric books I’ve made this year as it’s become a bit of a 2023 obsession!

I have already written about a few of them in separate posts. For instance my 100 Days or Organic Applique book in this post here. And my Dream Flowers book in this post here.

But since Dream Flowers I have made 3 new books: Dream Birds and 2 more volumes of what I am now calling ‘My Fabric Scrap Books’. These were both made for the Keepsake Fabric Book class (yes I know I keep changing the name but bear with!) either to promote it or for the actual class videos.

I’m now remembering to take photos of all the pages BEFORE they become a book which is a great way to share them in still photography. On Instagram I can post these as videos where I flick though each page. These reels work so well and have increased the interest in the fabric books themselves. But the 3D quality of the books is harder to convey in a blog post.

Here are some of the pages for Volume 2 above and Volume 3 below. The basic idea for these scrap books is to use sample pieces, orphan blocks etc that you already have and mix these with new pieces and precious or pre-loved fabrics you have been hoarding.

In the class I will be teaching my organic applique with embroidery techniques and encouraging you to design your own freehand applique.

However I also provide patterns for 3 flowers that appear in the third volume and that are inspired by the original designs I did at the start of the year.

As our previous Academy class was Visible Mending with Karen I had a go at this using old jeans and lots of different sashiko thread (below) to make another page. I also embellished curtain fabric scraps and used vintage embroidered linen for the cover (with just new text embroidery added).

These books are so much fun to create and so precious to own. People do ask me what they are for and what I’m going to do with them and I just explain that I am going to keep making them and treasuring them until I have a whole shelf full!

I just get so much joy from flicking through them and I love how they ‘capture’ these pieces of work that are just laying around waiting for a use.

The one book I haven’t really shared yet is the Dream Birds book.

This has been my most popular project this year by a long way! I have made the book (it’s the one with the charcoal cover) but then decided I should have embroidered the bird’s names on each page and have yet to retro stitch this. I’m also not sharing this yet as I am planning to produce patterns for this dream birds and release them early in the New Year so I am keeping the big book reveal until I’m ready to launch these.

But as you guys are so nice and loyal, reading this for so many years (15 in 2024!!), I’m going to share 2 new Dream Birds I’ve created this month. The one above has already been shared on IG but the second one below is an exclusive for my dear blog readers!

These new birds are designed for specific purposes which will be revealed in the New Year. I have one more to add to this little group which will be stitched this week.

And while you are waiting for Dream Bird patterns to arrive why not sign up for my Keepsake Fabric Book class? This is an online class of pre-recorded videos (which total over 2.5 hours in length!). This single class has lifetime access and as it’s theme is sustainable sewing I’m encouraging you to use what you already have for this class and not buy anything new! Read more about the class here and purchase here.

I hope you can join me when the class goes live on January 1st, I think it will be a lovely way to start the New Year!