More Fun With Journal Covers

After preparing several covers so that I could quilt them in a batch I have to say that I still wasn't totally comfortable with the fusible batting - I was attempting to get it to adhere to only one layer rather than sandwich it - but that connection wasn't great and it made turning things right side out a little tricky, so I decided to improvise and see what would happen.

I found a piece of very lightweight cotton and sandwiched the batting between the pieced cover and it, and then quilted everything before sewing the front and lining together; it worked much better than joining the cover and lining and they quiling & topstitching. It gives the cover a bit more structure because there are now three layers of fabric involved but the covers on this first batch of journal are not that firm so its all for the best.

My machine is older and has never been that precise at topstitching, especially through several layers, so I wasn't liking the finish that I was getting by topstitching everything at the end. I also didn't care to have the few stitches at the start and end of each quilting line showing, so now I quilt it first, sew front and lining together and then hand stitch the sleeves/foldover to the cover with a ladder stitch so there is no topstitching and all the starts and stops are hidden; its a much nicer finish.







This is the thread that I'm using to quilt all of the, a lovely variegated blue/green. I have TONS of it so either I start working onlarger quilted projects or I really go big with the production of the journal covers! The transition in colour creates interesting light in the pieces, giving them more even more dimension...M