Journal Covers

Last week I hinted about a big project that was coming up, so here's a peek at my progress so far.  My DIL needs a large quantity of gifts for a special event coming up, and since she's a busy working mom, she asked for my assistance.  Of course, I said yes, and put all my other WIP's aside for now.  There's always time to finish those later, right?

I've had this project (Journal Cover Tutorial by Bloom) in my mental "must-do" list ever since I saw it, and when I showed the tutorial to my DIL, she thought it was perfect.  So the production begins!  Six yards of Essex Linen in Natural, combined with fusible fleece and a ton of fabric scraps, makes about 30 covers.

The best part of this was digging through the big box of modern fabric scraps that she sent me to work with. Of course, I added a few of my own to the batch, just to add more variety, but her scrap collection is awesome!  I had so much fun cutting and arranging all the little 1 3/4" squares.  In fact, I cut so many that I have enough left over to make a baby quilt!  But that's a project for another day....

I made one complete cover first, just to test my dimensions, since I used a different sized notebook than Bloom did - and it's a good thing, because I screwed up and had to re-calculate.  Here's how the test one ended up, after re-cutting the linen.