I love big books and I cannot lie..

I'm having a book based making week this week. I love reading, but the opportunities seldom present themselves recently. My dad has a Kindle and loves it, but as my chances to read usually come when I'm in the bath, I decided this was not a sensible route to go down. Book dropped in bath= soggy book. Kindle dropped in bath= lots of expletives and considerable cost. That said, when I was at a ridiculously quiet craft fair the other week, I was very glad I'd had the forethought to download the Kindle app for my iPod and a couple of books.
Any hoo..yes, if its not books, its notebooks. I'm not quite sure why as I rarely use them. If I'm writing its always on an A4 pad, yet still I cannot resist. But if you're going to tote around a load of notebooks, they might as well be gorgeous.
This is a pattern for a notebook cover and what I really love about this is that there's no hand sewing involved. So often- I find anyway- I get to the end of making something and you've got a hole to hand stitch where you've turned something the right way around. The turning out is the best bit, where you can admire the fruits of your labour, but no, you still have a pesky bit of hand sewing to do.

A male and female version. And yes, the creme egg was consumed shortly after completion. Well a girl needs an incentive to get things done sometimes!

What you need:
1 @ 25 x 35cm of your main fabric
1 @ 25 x 35cm of plain cotton or calico for the lining.
1 @ 25 x 35cm felt
2 @ 14 x 25cm of either plain cotton of main fabric for the flaps.
1 @ 20 x 25cm of plain cotton.

-Firstly take your flap pieces. Fold one edge over by 5mm and press, then fold again. Pin and stitch.

Repeat for the other flap.
-Grab the 20 x 25 piece. Press over the 25cm edges by 1 cm and stitch.
-Lay your cotton down on a surface. Lay the felt on top, then your main fabric with the nice side facing upwards. then take the side flaps and place them at either side with the unseamed edges lined up with the outer edge and the seam facing you. Like so:

Then take your 20 x 25cm piece and place that over the middle.
-Pin all the way around and straight stitch all the way around with a 5mm seam allowance.
-Cut off the corners at right angles:

-Zigzag around the edge.
Nearly there!
-Turn the right way round. Poke your corners out and press to get a sharp edge.

-Top stitch around the edge at about 3mm in and insert notebook.

It really is as simple as that. I got three of these done between waking up from my early evening nap! (aka putting Pambers to bed) and stopping to watch Little Paris Kitchen (my new favourite cookery book);which was only about an hour. So get cracking!
xx