Easy Patchwork Notebook Tutorial

As this school year draws to a close, I can’t help wanting to get ready for next school year. The cost of purchasing all the clothing, shoes and school supplies for 4 kiddos at the same time makes me want to hyperventilate a little bit. If I can spread out the expense over the three month vacation, it sure wouldn’t hurt! My girls love these notebook covers. They are great for covering composition books that kids seem to use up like it’s paper – oh I guess it is paper! 😉

Materials:

• 24″ wide X 11.75″ tall Fusible interfacing or fusible fleece. I like the fleece option as it gives the cover a small amount of padding.
•  2″ squares of decorative cotton (or 2″ squares cut into triangles if you’d prefer – it’s a cute look too!)
• 24″ wide X 11.75″ tall piece of muslin or other scrap fabric for the inside of the cover.
• Coordinating thread

1/2″ seam allowance unless otherwise noted.

I started with an average sized composition book (7.5″ wide X 10.75″ tall) and made note of the measurement while it was open (15″ wide X 10.75″ tall). I added about 9 inches to the width so that the cover could be folded over to form a pocket to hold the front and back covers.

Fuse your squares (or triangles) to the fleece row by row, being sure to overlap the squares ever so slightly so that you don’t have any interfacing showing through. Make sure your blocks of fabric are all lined up.

Using a 3 step zig-zag stitch (or a regular zig-zag stitch) sew down all the raw edges of the squares.

With right sides together, lay the muslin on top of your beautiful cover and straight stitch around the cover leaving open about 4 to 5 inches on one of the short sides to turn right side out.

Once turned right side out, Press. Using a 1/4″ seam allowance, top stitch both of the short ends making sure to catch the fabric on the inside of the book cover that you had left unsewn to turn the notebook cover right side out.

Fold the short edges to the inside of the cover about 4 inches inward on both edges. Match edges and pin. Top stitch long edges with the short edges folded inward to form the pockets for the front and back notebook covers.

By request, I only need to make about 10 more of these. Whew! Luckily they are quick to stitch up and super fun!