DIY CONSTELLATION BOOK COVER

When I was in the first grade, I remember in particular two embroidery projects we did. One was an embroidered cover for our recorder flutes, and the other was an embroidered book cover. The book cover had my name on the front, and for the rest of the cover I made a stripy pattern where I practiced all the different stiches I knew in various pastel colors. (I actually still have both of these projects!)

I can't say I've done a whole lot of embroidery projects since then, though. I've made a couple of constellation embroidery projects that I've given away as gifts to friends, but that's about it. I wanted to take the constellation embroidery concept a bit further though, so I decided to make an embroider a book cover (yay for recycling primary school project ideas!). I'm no embroidery expert by far, but this is pretty much as simple as it gets. It's a pretty cute gift idea, and it can easily be personalized for someone's birthday with their constellation.

As this was a project for a friend who likes to both draw and write, I decided to make my cover for a plain moleskin sketchbook. I used navy fabric and white embroidery thread, as well as scissors, an embroidery needle, and a regular needle and navy thread to stitch it up. An embroidery hoop probably also would have been helpful, but I didn't have one around. 

1. Measure your book and cut the fabric to size. Make sure your fabric wraps all around the book (inside and outside the cover), and is about 5 cm taller than your book. for my 12.5 by 21 cm notebook, I cut a piece of fabric measuring 50 by 26 cm.

2. Hem the shorter edges of your book. You won't need to hem the longer edges, as they'll be folded in and hidden by the book.

3. Fold the fabric (with the right side in) using the book as a guide, and pin up the top and bottom. Stitch in place, and turn it inside out.
4. Place your design at the front, and embroider away! If you're doing a more complicated one, you might want to do this step before you stitch up the cover. I got my virgo constellation from wikipedia, and used a simple running stitch to link the stars in the constellation. Once you've finished embroidering, place your book inside and you're done!

I decided to also add a "this book belongs to" tag on the inside, where I used some white fabric scraps and some black thread (which I think might have ended up being my favorite bit of this project, actually).