Make Quick Sew Soft Books for Christmas!
It feels good to sew up Christmas presents, especially for the kids, but it can also be stressful trying to dream up something all new or just to find time to work during the busy holiday season. Try easy-sew soft books for little ones and create beautiful holiday gifts in no time!
We carry a number of wonderful soft book panels, including several Christmas-themed stories like the angel themed Little Light Nativity:
Thank You God and many more.
The Nativity themed The Great I Am, which we used in the photos, is no longer available, but we have lots of other cute designs to choose from!
A key note while making these soft books is to NOT pre-wash the fabric. You want the pages to be as uniform as possible to line up when cutting & sewing - if you wash the panel first the shrinkage can distort them. You can wash the finished book after & it'll keep its original shape better thanks to the seams.
Thinner batting is also important - it makes it easier to keep the layers straight and corners crisper. And again, if the book is going to ever get washed, it's best to avoid 100% cotton batting, which will shrink up quite a bit.
Soft book panels have handy instructions printed right on the panel to tell you which pages to put together.
Basically, you just follow the cut lines, pair the proper pages together (right sides facing), put on a layer of batting, pin and stitch around, leaving a couple inch wide gap.
Trimming down the corners makes them nice & pointed when turning right side out.
It is our youngest baby's first Christmas and she LOVES anything crinkly, so we added some crinkle paper (aka cellophane) inside each page to give it a little "crunch". Just cut the cellophane about 1/2 inch smaller than each finished double page and slide in flat before hand stitching the gaps closed,
and press each double page nice & flat (note: press before inserting cellophane if adding crinkle effect).
Layer the pages in the order from the instructions.
The cover is usually slightly bigger, so it's key to line them up along the binding rather than the corners.
Drawing a line & pinning down the binding makes sure the stitch line is extra straight and doesn't shift while trying to sew through all the layers.
Soft books really are an ideal handmade gift for the smalls - they can't destroy them & are washable, but they still have a keepsake kind of quality. Our 2 yr old loves to look at them in bed and there's no worry of ripped pages or poky corners when he drifts off to sleep.
Make a beautiful & memorable gift this Christmas that shows just how much you love them!
