Stash Bee: Hive 1 - August Tutorial - Books Disassembled for Adrienne

Hi everyone, this being my first Stash Bee, I had a really tough time deciding on what block I would choose for my month.

My best friend just graduated with a Master's in Library Sciences and is moving across the country for her dream job! I am asking everyone to help me create books for a bookshelf quilt, I have not decided on the background color so I just need help with the books.

I am hoping this will be an excellent strip scrap buster 👏 I am planning on making each person's books into a block for the bookshelf, so your books can coordinate or be unique, but they will be together on the shelf (if that makes any sense?)

The parameters for this month's project are:

- I would like the books to be disassembled and don't worry about squaring up

- Being mindful of the 1.5 hour time limit, don't make the book covers too complicated

- Choose less than 10 fabrics total, repeats are fine

- The book height can be no higher than 9 3/4"

- The book width can be no thinner than 1" and no wider than 4 1/2"

- Make your book pile to be a total of 16" wide or less - make as few/many you like!

for example: make 8 - 2" books, or 16 - 1" books, or 4 - 2", 3 - 1.5", and 1 - 3.5" books

The main wall color will be mauve(y) with the bookshelf looking like an old/dark library. I am deciding on the background of the bookshelf, so for the books I am thinking rich, muted/greige tones; colors like olive, emerald, plum, eggplant, navy, dark gold, maroon, black, grey etc but anything will work except neon colors.

Any fabric styles would look great as a book, so use whatever you would like; bonus if it looks like a book! I found the below eyeshadow palette the other night and thought it was a perfect representation of some of her favorite colors for some inspiration!

I found a lot of color combo/fabric style/book cover shape inspiration on Fandom for Stitches, check out the Bookcase Quilts section! FYI it's a fantastic resource for some FREE paper piecing and embroidery patterns that are wonderfully curated for any of your future projects. 😊

A couple ideas for making book covers that I have started:

(I guess we can't click on the tiny picture but zooming in will work)

Some doodles of book cover ideas

I literally grabbed a handful of fabrics from one of my scrap bins.

Also, meet Grace my bossy supervisor....

How to assemble the books:

For any of these with seams, press any way you like 😀

A Plain book:

Pick a strip and trim to the length and width you would like it and done! This one is my favorite 😁

A decorative binding strip: double binding, top and bottom, on an angle:

Pick a strip for the book cover and a scrap of contrasting color, decide where you want to place the contrasting color: at the top, bottom, top and bottom or on an angle. Cut the book cover strip where you would like to place the contrast edge, then sew the strips together. I trimmed off the excess for the photo but you don't have to do that.

A diamond shape binding:

Pick 2 fabrics, I chose a gold scrap that was 3" wide and navy that I cut into 2" squares. If your squares are more than 1/2 the width of the bigger piece, there will be more overlap so your points don't get chopped off. Place the square in a corner of the rectangle and stitch from point to point across the square. Trim 1/4" from your seam and press open. Place another square on the other corner and repeat.

An applique binding: (If you are feeling like a challenge, use your preferred applique method)

Pick a strip for the book cover and a scrap of contrasting color, trim the contrasting piece to the shape you would like: oval, circle, square, rectangle. Place the applique piece 1/4" away from the edge of the book cover unless you want the edge in the seam allowance (I did both examples below) Applique shape to the strip.

The book on the left: I want the corners of the gold fabric to be in the seam allowance

The book on the right: I trimmed my oval so that the edges are more than 1/4" away from the edge and won't be in the seam allowance.

A set of books:

Pick a larger scrap for the book cover and contrasting strip for the decorative edge. I chose a large scrap that was 8”x8” and the contrast strip was 1.5”x 16”. I cut the large scrap into thirds; one section wider than the other two and then cut the contrast strip in half. I placed the contrast strip between the book cover sections. I sewed the strips together into one block and then, subcut into strips of different widths of 1.5", 1.75", 2", 2.5 to make a set of identical books.

A book on it's side (if you decide to make one of these, please make the pages light like white, white on white, light grey, even light yellow)

Pick a strip for the book cover and a rectangle of a light fabric for the pages. Trim the strip to 3/4"-1" width and the pages can be any width. My book example below was 1” book cover strips and 2”x6” rectangle for the pages. Subcut the book cover strip into 3; 2 sides of the book edge and 1 side for the binding edge, I didn’t measure the binding edge, I just approximated since I planned to trim it.

Sew the long strips for the book cover and pages together and then sew on the binding edge.

A book with a selvage title

Pick a strip for the book cover and a length of selvage. I trimmed the selvage about 1/4" ish from the text. Cut the strip into 3 across the short side: 2 shorter pieces and 1 wider piece. Cut the larger piece in half down the long side, perpendicular to where you cut. Sew the long pieces to the selvage and then sew the 2 short pieces onto the end.