Tutorial: Make a Bookcover

Our Vacation Bible School this year is decorating bookcovers as a craft. I was asked to help make them. I decided to post a tutorial here because of a cute gift my cousin gave me for Christmas. The Sewing: 2010 Day-to-Day Calendar. It has great crafty ideas for people just starting to sew or looking for fast fun projects. I've even got a couple pages saved to try out :)

The book I was given to fit is The Catholic Youth Bible. Now I know there are more accurate ways to do this, but this is how I make a fast cover.

First I draw a straight line on a large piece of Kraft Paper with a ruler. This is the bottom.

Then I mark the size of the front.

The spine.

The Back.

Then the front.

And back again.

Then I added 1/2" seam allowance to the bottom (I wasn't the only one sewing these and the ladies said they would be most comfortable with that seam allowance)

And the top, plus 1/4" for ease. If it had been hard cover I would have added 1/2" for ease.

This is the center back piece, it is one front, notice the seam allowances and ease added the same as the cover piece.

Next I removed 1" from both sides of the pattern. I only have a picture of it taken from the left side. It needs to come off the right side too. This makes room on the inside of the book cover for the spine.

The fold line is the first line on both sides. See it marked 4 pictures up :)

I made a pattern on taped together Manilla File Folders , and its a good thing, because we made 200! Any other paper would have been totally trashed. This was used well as it is! I notched the fold lines and the center back. Plus the center of the back piece.

The covers are made from a nice heavy weight muslin from Joann's with the use of the 40% off coupon that comes in the mailers.
I used my trusty Juki overlock to neatly finish the side edges of the cover and the center back piece. I did all 200!

Folded at the notches. The notches were all marked with pen in the seam allowance.

We used Ribbon to add 2 bookmarks at the center notch.

After both sides are folded back at the notches, the center piece is added, over the bookmark, matching center notches.

Ready to sew. Make sure the bookmarks go off to the side, you only want to catch them in the top, not the bottom.

I used a Pfaff mine is a 563.

I went back and made a double set of stitches at the bookmark.

Turn the center piece first. (The overlock stitch quality is poor because I was lazy and I did not change the needle!)

Then the sides. I did not clip the corners. I wanted to fill in the corners.

Isn't she lovely?