I was delighted to hear of the arrival of Mabel, one special baby girl. A strong desire to make her a unique gift led to the thought to make a fabric baby book.
After some browsing of Pinterest I decided to make a book with a page for each letter of her name, represented by appliqued animals.
A sketch later and layout was sorted. Designs were inspired by google image searches for appliqué animal shapes.
One of the wonderful benefits of a fabric stash is having suitable fabrics in for projects such as this. I used bondaweb to adhere the pieces to the base fabric prior to machine embroidering.
On each page I endeavoured a add different types of touch sensation to each page; different types of fabrics, the butterfly wings, and elephants ears are flaps, the noses & eyes vary – buttons, a crowd of French knots, silk embroidered circles.
I added a layer of wadding in between the pages, and topstitched round the edges of the pages. The two pages were machine stitched down the middle to hold the pages together. The wadding and top stitching did add the finishing touch:)
It did cross to my mind to add custom order applique fabric books to my Etsy shop. However I was put off when trying to think of two different animals for the letters G and E as demonstrations of the name George!
As usual I am popping by Handmade Harbour 🙂
This post is linked up here
Aww what an adorable gift! It really is a great idea and i love your animals, especially the lion! I can see this being treasured by its lucky owner for years to come 🙂 x
What a lovely gift!
lovely book, is that liberty tana lawn in the elephant? Even if it isn’t, it’s gorgeous!
What a thoughtful and beautiful creation. well done x
What a gorgeous idea. I’m sure it’s one of those things that will be treasured.
What a beautiful little book, I’m sure it will be treasured for many years. If you’re looking for extra images for letters G could be goat, gate, grapes, grass and E could be elephant, egg (E is much harder!)
omg how wonderful is this! love the detail 🙂
What a lovely idea and beautifully made! Have a happy new year, Jo x
What a gorgeous present. I’m sure it will be greatly treasured.
A beautiful baby gift!!! G for giraffe, gerbil and guinea pig. E for elephant, echidna and eagle.
I’ve featured your baby book today, Vicky.
Lovely book. I am sure she will keep it as an heirloom.
I LOVE this!
What a lovely idea and design. Beautiful present to receive!
Oh I have just found this lovely blog 🙂
It is such a beautiful book and yes it will always be treasured.
It’s lucky owner loves it already!
Many many thanks xxxx
I love this idea! This year I’m all about making gifts and this is just fantastic! especially love how you’re spelling out the name rather than just having random pages.
I love the little ear on the elephant! This is so cute!!