Daffodil Lace Book Cover Project

This jolly project was prepared for you to try working with lace designs. Hope you'd like the idea of making lacy book cover. You may use the same instruction to make a cover for totally different items - Bible, photo album, memo pad, your recipes book or diary.

This project was created using Book Cover Daffodil Lace designs, which can be purchased separately. They're also a great add-on for Daffodils Lace collection that allows you to make a huge variety of projects in identical style. Please visit the Lace Embroidery Designs category to find a large selection of project-oriented sets with freestanding lace designs.

And here's how the finished project looks on front and backsides:

Supplies & Suggestions:

Make sure you have the following items at your disposal:

1.Water-soluble backing

We highly recommend fabric-type water soluble, because it "sits" better in hoop during the embroidery process and practically doesn't stretch. As a result, lace designs come out much better than with film-type WSB.

2.Top & Bobbin polyester thread in identical color.

With lace designs, using strong thread is very important; because laces are stitch intensive and breaking thread will drive you crazy in no time. Also, thread breaks can cause the laces to unravel later.

Your thread also mustn't be stretchy. Threads sold by a couple of certain well-known brands tend to stretch a lot. Be careful, because lace designs will loose their shape if you use stretchy thread. Test your thread on one design to make sure it's suitable for lace, before you embroider tens of lace pieces and "find it out".

3. A piece of quality fabric that sews well. Make sure it's not stretchy, not slippery, and doesn't unravel easily. The size should be enough to cover your book. The height should be approximately 2 inches over your book height, the width - approximately 3 times your book width.

4. Prepare a pair of sharp scissors, some sewing pins, textile pencil and of course, lace designs.

Warnings & Tips:

1. NEVER resize lace designs. Most chances are that you'll ruin them completely. They are very sensitive to precision. While regular design may resize ok, a resized lace design will most probably fall apart after you wash away the water-soluble backing.

2. If you have new supplies (thread, stabilizer) - try them out first on one small test design, to see if everything is ok. Stitch it, wash away the water soluble and dry - just to see that your backing and thread are working well together. Only then continue with your main project.

3. Sometimes, especially with dense lace designs, it may be difficult to sew them together using embroidery machine. If you see it's the case - just stitch them on manually.

Detailed Instruction for Making The Book Cover

1. Embroider all lace designs that you will need for assembling the project, using 2-3 layers of water-soluble fabric, on lowest speed your machine allows.

The number of Water Soluble Backing layers depends on type of backing you use, and on design density; for these Daffodils 2 layers of fabric WSB have been used.

Attention: It may seem to you that one layer of strong WSB is enough. Yet, many machines start breaking thread terribly, when only one layer on WSB is used. We've noticed that often an extra layer of water-soluble just solves this problem. So avoid trying to save an extra layer, even if your WSB is very strong. And if you still see many thread breaks with 2 layers - try to add a third one.

It's best to embroider each section in separate hoop. For each design, try to pick up the smallest suitable hoop you can.

Make sure that hooped WSB can't move, even slightly. If your hoop is far from perfect, and holds fabric badly - consider purchasing a new hoop with special metal spins. This is quite a small expense that can take your embroidery to a totally new level. Most machine dealers now carry those wonderful new hoops with spins. As a temporary solution, you can wrap a paper towel around one hoop frame, to add friction and prevent your backing from moving.

After you've stitched the lace pieces, cut away large edges of water soluble backing around each design, leaving about 1 inch from each side, like this:

2. Measure your book width, height and depth. Mark and cut the fabric you've prepared for the cover. It should be approx. two inches higher than your book, and 2 3/4 times wider.

3. Turn fabric edges twice inside, 1/2 inch each turn, pin and sew all around the border with running stitch:

4. Position the fabric over your book, exactly like the cover will be, and pin the laces over front and backsides, exactly where you want them to be:

5. Sew the laces onto the fabric base, using regular running stitch. Use same thread color like on the design top. Use invisible thread ONLY if you have absolutely no choice.

6. Cut away the fabric inside the areas where lace designs are attached, from the back side, close to the edge:

7. Sew around the lace edge again, using relatively dense short zigzag stitch, to prevent fabric edges from unraveling.

8. Put the almost ready cover on your book, again. Pin the spots where the fabric should be sewn to make cover "pockets", and sew the pockets on your machine:

9. Sew on a decorative ribbon over the cover, and wash away the water-soluble fabric. Be sure to wash it away carefully, without stretching or deforming the lace. If you want the lace to be as soft as possible - you may even leave the item in warm water for half an hour or so, to make all water soluble substance go away. Once the backing dissolves, position the item on plain surface covered by a towel, straighten the lace with your fingers to make sure it gets back to its ideal shape. Let the item dry. You may use iron & towel to speed up the process.

10. Ready!

To make similar projects, make sure you have the following supplies available: