Sewing Lessons - Lesson One: The Book Cover

Difficulty: Easy

I have been sewing almost as long as I can remember. My grandmother taught me by handing me a needle and thread and some scraps of fabric and sending me off to do my worst. It's not a bad way to learn, but a few more directive lessons would have helped me to improve a lot faster.

SPECIAL NOTE: For these lessons I am switching to cm rather than inches. I'm doing so because, on my measuring tapes at least, the mm measurements allow me to be more precise than the inch measurements.

For this project you will need:

A book that needs a cover
A measuring tape (not a ruler!)
A sewing machine
Fabric (something that won't shrink when you wash it and isn't too heavy - a poly-cotton blend something like sheet material is best. It is cheap and comes in lots of designs)
Scissors
Pins
An iron

BEFORE YOU BEGIN:

Now is your chance to make mistakes and get comfortable with the machine before it matters so try out your sewing machine. Read the instructions on how to thread it. Practice three or four times until you can do it quickly and without checking the threading diagram. Get a piece of scrap fabric and practice sewing in random lines for ten minutes or so. Make sure you know how hard you need to press on the pedal to get it to go at a speed you are comfortable with. Find out what speed you are comfortable at. You don't need to sew fast to sew well. This is your warm up.

Okay, now you can begin.

Step One: Measure Twice, Cut Once

***I've gone on and on before about how important this rule is. Measure your book carefully. Be precise. If the book is 21.25 cm high, write down 21.25 cm.***

Measure the height of the book along the edge of the cover. My book is 20.8 cm high.

You also need to measure around the book, from the edge of the cover, over the spine to the other edge. My book is 30.4 cm measured this way.

You now have two measurements 20.8 high and 30.4 around. You can't just cut out a piece of fabric this big though because as soon as you make a seam you won't have something 20.8 high and 30.4 around. You need to add a seam allowance.

A seam allowance is the extra fabric that gets eaten up and hidden by the seam. A standard seam allowance is 1.5 cm.

So, in order to get the seam allowance for the book cover, you need to add 1.5 cm everywhere there is going to be a seam. That means 3 cm to the 20.8 measurement (seam at the top and seam at the bottom). So my new height measurement is 23.8 cm

There isn't going to be a standard seam around the book. what you need to add instead is the bit that keeps the cover on. To figure out how much to add you can divide the measurement around by two :

30.4 / 2 = 15.2

This gives you roughly the measurement of the cover.

Divide by two again to get half the size of the cover:

15.2 / 2 = 7.6

and round up to the nearest whole number.

= 8cm added to each side to keep the cover on.

So in order to have a piece of fabric that will make a book cover big enough for my book, with all of the seam allowances included that will also stay on the book, I need to cut a rectangle of fabric 23.8 cm high and 46.4 cm long.

Here it is turned sideways.

Step Two: Pressing and Checking

This step requires Adult supervision if you are not allowed to use the iron on your own!

Plug in your iron. Place your fabric wrong side up on the ironing board. (Wrong-side is the side you don't want to see when the book cover is finished.)

Measure your 8cm 'wings' and press them into the fabric as per the picture below:

 Now open your book and tuck the cover under the wings.

 So far so good. Close the book and make sure that the fabric still fits around the book. Look at where the lines you ironed are. Are they at the edges of the cover? They should be when the book is closed. If they aren't mark where the edges are and re-iron your fabric. The creases absolutely need to be at the edges of the cover with the book closed. The fabric should be tight, but not so tight that the book won't shut.

Mark the top and the bottom of each crease. Flip the fabric over so that it is right side up. Now press the creases the other way out so that the right sides are touching. Make sure you press along the same line as before. Check your marks. If you are not sure, do the check with the book again.

At the turned in edges, you need to create a hem so that the fabric doesn't fray. Open out the two flaps you have just pressed so that you have one flat piece of fabric again. Turn the edge over on itself once - as narrow as you can manage. Press. Turn the edge over again the same amount. Press.  Do this to both sides. Make sure that you don't iron out the creases you have already made - you'll need them in a minute.

It should look something like the picture below when you are done:

Step Three: Sewing

Sew down the narrow folds you have just pressed into each edge. Go slowly and keep the needle in the middle of the folded fabric. Go as slowly as you like. Make sure that you are only sewing through the area you have just pressed and not through the middle section of the cover. 

TIP: You can use the edge of the presser foot to guide you. The key is to watch the edge of your fabric and not the needle. I know you want to watch the needle, but it always does the same thing. Up, down, up, down, up, down. No changes. If you watch where the fabric is going, you are much more likely to sew in a straight line. (This is one of those things that I wish someone had mentioned earlier. I was about 14 before I figured this one out - not that old until you realise I'd been sewing for at least 8 years at that point.)

Now fold the fabric back along the creases you pressed to mark where it wraps around the cover. 

Pin along the top and bottom edges. 

This is turned sideways again.

Sew from the folded corner to the edge of the fabric with your seam on it. For now you will always want to start sewing at the folded edge. This way, any bubbles in the fabric get pushed flat by the presser foot and your measurements stay true. This means you will need to have the main bit of the fabric inside and outside the arm of the machine - like the pictures below. Normally you only want to have the fabric as per the photo on the left with all of the fabric on the outside of the arm. This project is small enough that it will be okay to do some of your sewing like the photo on the right. (In later lessons this will be Verboten and earn you 40 lashes with a wet ribbon.)

Also, if you put the pins in as per the photos above, you do not need to take them out as you go: the needle will hop over them as long as you are sewing at a reasonable pace. If you are worried about it, you can take them out just before each pin goes under the curved part of the presser foot.

Make sure that you are not making the seam more than 1.5 cm from the edge. If you look at the picture on the left you will see some lines on the sewing machine. (my seams are shorter than 1.5 cm so you can see these lines). The lines are there to help you measure your seam allowance. You should have these on your machine as well. Measure them to see which one is 1.5 cm away from the needle- it is usually the one furthest away. When sewing, watch that the edge of the fabric always stays along this line.

When you have made four seams, take out the pins and clip off the edge of each corner, making sure that you don't cut off down to the seam:

Now turn the cover the right way out and press everything flat. If you place the iron down on one corner and pull the one across from it (making a straight line across the top or bottom, not an X) you will also pull the top and bottom of the cover into line and create a crease there.

 When you have pressed everything, open up your book and slip the cover on. You'll need to open the book really wide to do this - almost spine crackingly wide. Be careful. If you have done everything to the correct measurements, it should fit. The cover will be snug when the book is closed and slightly loose when you have it open for reading.

Ta Da! All done.

If your cover doesn't fit either you made some errors in your measurements or your seam allowances were off. Most of the time it is the seam allowances. Cut out another rectangle of fabric and give it another go. When you have mastered seam allowances and sewing in straight lines, you will be ready for Lesson Two - The Bag.