Fabric (text)book cover tutorial

My oldest daughter started Middle School this year and she was required to cover all her textbooks in brown paper bags to protect them. Makes sense, right? The only problem is that all the books then look the same, and ugly. There is absolutely no reason a girl should walk around school with her books covered in brown paper when her mother has shelves full of gorgeous fabric on hand. She chose the fabric, I made covers. They were so easy to make and made books so much more cheerful that I thought I'd share with you how to make some for yourselves.


Fabric (text)book cover tutorial

Start by measuring the book. The one I was covering was 9" wide, spine was 2", and the height was 10.5". 

Now on to some math, don't worry, all we do is some simple addition. It's and easy book cover, after all.
longer side: width of the book + spine + width of the book again + 10" (5 for each flap)
shorter side: height of the book + 2"

Using this formula, I cut out a piece of fabric that was 9 + 2 + 9 + 10 = 30"   x   10.5 + 2 = 12.5"

Also, cut medium weight interfacing the same size as your fabric rectangle, in my case 30" x 12.5". Fuse it to your fabric using manufacturer's directions.

Mark 3/4" along both short sides of the fabric. Fold it down, wrong sides touching, iron, and sew in place.

Do the same on the other short side. Fold 3/4" down and sew in place along both longer sides, too. This is what your rectangle will look like, no raw edges.

Now on to the flaps.
Fold short sides down toward center, flaps should measure 4", iron, and sew in place,  you will sew about 1/8" from the edge along the longer side of the rectangle (start and finish at places marked with black on the picture, backstitch at the beginning and end). Please don't pay attention to my 7" flaps, that was my first cover and they ended up being unnecessarily wide.

There you go. Wasn't that easy? One very simple and quick book cover is done.  Don't these textbooks look so much better?

You can use this easy method to cover notebooks, too.

I hope you give it a try. Svetlana