Quiet Book Project: Simple Counting Page

For G’s second birthday, I really wanted to come up with a present that would carry some meaning. Our apartment is already a plastic rainbow shrine to every modern toy-making conglomerate, so there’s nothing out there with enough wings, zings, and bangs to outdo the chattering of his toy chest. Like every other woman with internet access, I started rifling through Pinterest and then got sucked into the world of Quiet Books.

Did any of you have one of these growing up? If no, I’ll explain. They’re cloth books for babies, toddlers, and older little kids where each page has some sort of activity. From what I gather, the original concept was bred out of needing to keep munchkins quiet during church services when the old hens in their pews want to get their fix of Our Fathers without the a whiny kid competing for airspace. Though we don't have a pressing need to regularly keep his excitable outburst under control, the educational aspect of these handmade books was very appealing to me. Plus, we’re talking about a world of crafty possibilities here. The things some of these Quiet Book makers have pulled together are amazing. We're talking light-up pages with conductive thread. How cool is that? If you have a few hours to kill and want to see some really magnificent work, you should leaf through all of her Quiet Book patterns and ideas. Simply put, it’s amazingly creative stuff.

Once I decided to attempt this project, I did what any other anal-retentive sewer would do: I created an Excel spreadsheet of my pages. I didn’t want to lose any of my ideas and also wanted to design the overall layout from the get-go, so I took about a week to stew and fret over it. I started out with 50 page ideas, but after sewing the first page and curbing my instinct to bite off more than I can chew, I whittled it down to 37. I know that this vision is still far loftier than reason will allow, but only time will tell which pages actually end up in the book and which are shelved for other projects.

I initiated this project without access to a working sewing machine so I needed to start with a simple concept. I wanted something that could be done completely by hand until I found a way to conjure magic and sew more than two inches of fabric before cussing out my abysmal machine. This page is standard fare for Quiet Books and it’s very easy for those of you like me who are constructing a page sans machine or without any formal embroidery knowledge whatsoever.

Simple Beaded String Counting Page

The counting beads are novelty pony beads that I found in the kid’s aisle of the craft store. The rainbow lacing is polyester cord that’s been twisted to create a spiraling pattern before securing the knotted ends with stitching and a bit of Fraycheck, just in case. The numbers were drawn free-hand onto the felt and then secured with your basic, easy, over and under stitching. Like all of the pages in the book, this page will eventually be sewn back-to-back with another page, fitted with grommets for the binding, and trimmed with bias tape to protect the edging. In order to leave myself with the most flexibility and prevent over-lap, I left at least a half-inch seam allowance around the entire page.

 

One page down, many…many more to go. 

Difficulty: Easy

Total Time: 3 hours

Supplies:

• Two 9"x11" rectangles of craft felt in whatever colors you prefer 
• Some sort of lacing (you can use really anything you want: shoe lacing, yarn, ribbon, etc.) 
• Beads of your choosing 
• Embroidery thread 
• Embroidery needle 
• FrayCheck (optional) 

Inspiration: General Pinterest scavenging through all of the available Quiet Books on the web.