Personalized cloth book the easy way

My granddaughter, Hazel, will be one next week! She loves reading books, so I thought it would be fun to make her a personalized cloth book, but I don’t really have the time to make it as elaborate as I would like. Instead, I needed something quick and easy.

A couple weeks ago I found a really cute book panel on Spoonflower that is customizable with the baby’s name, so I ordered one. Yesterday, I got the idea of printing Hazel’s picture and sewing it to the front of the book, covering up the baby motif that was on the panel. Such a simple way to make it a little more personalized! It worked so well, that I thought it would well on other book panels, too. This makes me want to make more cloth books with family photos sewn over the top of various parts. I have some squirreled away, and I can’t wait to give it a try.

Here’s the tutorial.

1. Choose a fabric book panel.
2. If you want, measure any areas that lend themselves to covering with a fabric photo, and print out your photo to the correct size.



3. Apply fusible webbing to the back of the fabric photos.
4. Turn under raw edges.
5. Fuse photo over the motif you want to replace. Straight stitch around all four edges.



6. As an optional step, cut lightweight interfacing the same as each book page. I used a heavier weight interfacing for the cover.
7. With right sides together, stitch around all four sides of each book page, leaving a gap of about 3″. Turn pages right side out and press. Topstitch around all four sides.
8. Layer book pages in order and stitch through the spine of the book through all layers. I added an extra ribbon up the spine and left a loop at the top so mom could attach the book to a car seat or stroller so it won’t get lost.

I was so excited about the book that when Hazel arrived at my house today I decided to give her the book early. She was so excited about seeing her photo on the front cover! Talk about a huge payoff for very little effort.