How to Make Quiet Book Page Forms

Above, The oh so problematic, first attempt, at Quiet Book Pages.  Notice the sad fraying edges.

The end result of the new process, much more satisfactory!

Alright so this probably won't be the most exciting post that I write, but it might be helpful to those of you out there trying to figure out how to make your Quiet Book Pages. I spent a lot of time debating over how I should make the pages for my sons quiet book. With Clark's I guess I was more anxious to get the project done so I decided that I would applique all of the parts and pieces to the page that was cut to the finished dimensions. I then sandwiched a thin piece of batting between the two pieces of fabric, and using a decorative stitch, finished the edges. I had thought that I would be saving myself a lot of time and work. Well I really didn't save myself time or work. I had a lot of trouble with my machine skipping stitches, and I wasn't able to encase the edges like I'd hoped (sadly, I don't own a serger). When I agreed to make a quiet book for a friend I knew that I had to find a better solution. I knew that I didn't want to use felt for the pages, and I also didn't want to have to use bias tape for all of the edges (I have seen it done, just seems cumbersome and expensive to me). The solution that I came up with is this...

Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Image 4

1. Cut out one 8x16 inch piece of thin batting for each page (front and back). For example, the last quiet book that I made had four separate pages with two pages on each side and two sides to each page (clear as mud). Anyway, there end up being 16 pages total.  I cut out 8 pieces of batting cut to 16x8 inches (each individual page will be 8x8, but with two to a page it is 8x16).
2. Cut out one 10x18 inch  piece of fabric for each piece of batting (8 total in my book).  I chose to have 4 different colors of pages in my book so I cut out two pieces of fabric in each color.
3. Lay one piece of cut batting on top of the wrong side of one piece of cut fabric (center the bat).
4. Fold over the extra material at the corner of the batting and press. Repeat on all 4 corners of the page. (see image 1)
5. Pull the material tight on the short ends of the page and press.  Pin in place. (See image 2)
6. Pull the material tight on the long ends of the page and press.  Pin in place. Try to make sure that the diagonal edges of the long and short ends meet up as close as possible forming a sharp point at the corner of the page.(See imagea 3&4)
7. With fabric pinned and pressed topstitch the material in place 1/4" away from the edge of the fabric, right side up, around the perimeter of the page.

You have now completed the first side of your page.  Hooray!  Now go ahead and complete this process for the other side of your page, and for any remaining pages that you will be completing. Once you have finished adorning and appliqueing your pages you can stitch the front and back of your pages together, doing so will allow you to encase the ends of your strings.

Following this process ensures that all of your raw edges are encased, and I love the look and feel of the pages with the double layer of batting.  It also provides more stability to the page when appliqueing. 

This probably isn't the most exciting post, but hopefully it proves helpful to anyone out there who wants to attempt a quiet book.

If anyone has questions leave me a comment or shoot me an email.