This Baby Animals of Africa project is a machine wash/dry softbook for our first Great Grandchild, Emma Jean. Our granddaughter wants lots of books for Emma so this will be the perfect gift for her first birthday, November 19
These baby animals are SO cute; please don’t require me to pick a favorite! When I purchased the design set and saw the colors, I immediately knew what I would make with them and remembered this beautiful batik in my stash; colors that blend yet soft enough for the embroidery threads to show. I am not one to obsess over color charts, but did the best I could with the (many!) BFC colors and Isacord colors I have on hand. I am thankful for Suz’s conversion charts! To say I’m pleased with the result, is an understatement!
I’m fortunate to have super embroidery software so I put the designs into the software and added the animal name at the bottom of each. For the cover I found an image of Africa and used Heat N Bond to iron on the appliqué shape and embroidered the cover title.
To prepare for embroidery on cotton, I always iron on Pellon Soft Flex SF101 interfacing to the back; helps keeps the fabric from stretching and reduces puckering, but is lightweight and allows the fabric to keep a nice feel. I hooped two layers of cutaway stabilizer (It could also have been tearaway) and adhered the prepared fabric with basting spray. I like to use a basting box to start embroidering designs. This further reduces in-the-hoop fabric movement while stitching.
The designs were a joy to embroider…and you know that excitement when you get to see the final picture. I have to say that expert digitizing is the key to truly enjoying machine embroidery. Susan Makalinaw is among the best! Thank you for the excellent work, Suz. I only had one issue and it was totally User Error; I skipped a color and wondered why the design seemed “off.” I finished it though, and can still use it, but I wanted this book to be perfect so only had to redo this one.
After embroidering I backed each oversized page with fusible fleece and did various free-motion techniques to quilt the pages. Next I trimmed each page to 8×9” so the designs were centered and each page was the same finished size.
The edging is cork vinyl I got at Hobby Lobby; cut into 1.5” wide, 9.5” long strips to edge the book pages. I used the sewing machine to stitch a strip to the inside edge of two joining pages. (The designs are in alphabetical order, because, well because!!! Lol.) Then I folded the cork strip in half, matching up the two page and sewed around the entire piece, leaving a border on the vinyl edge for hole punching. I trimmed the excess cork along the edge of the pages then enlisted my resident “muscle” to use an awesome antique leather punch that was a gift from his mother. The tie is a multi-colored organza ribbon with ends like a shoelace (I can’t even remember how many years I’ve had this :)). Oh, and I purposely left the edges unfinished; love the casual look of raw-edge that will still look great after washing and drying.
Pictured I show you the cover page and how the book looks laced up and tied, along with the inside-back label page that I created in my software. The second photo is two random inside designs to show you how the book looks when open. The third photo is of all the stitched out designs. The final book is six front and back pages.Only two months until I get to present this unique gift to our beautiful great granddaughter. I can hardly wait; even though I doubt it will be in person. We’ve only seen her once, but for a week, in February of this year, then the world-wide pandemic hit. Our granddaughter makes our days by sending us a Snapchat of Emma almost every morning. She wakes up smiling and is one busy little girl!
