Fabric Lace Memory Book. 4 - My First Page and Tips for Lace

My adventure into the world of fabric lace memory books has begun...and I am loving it!  It is nice to not have the stress of having to make sure everything matches or is the same as you have to do in quilting. It is nice to be able to just 'put it together" and not worry about being straight or matching.
And it is nice to have the feeling of completion so often! I compare this to quilting as until now...quilting was 80% of my time and talent! But I have put quilting on the back burner for now to make these memory books for my grand daughters. Finish page a page a day! How cool is that! Well, even cooler, is that you can finish several pages in a day if you want to! I hope I can make that happen!

I know I have been talking about tons of lace and vintage this and that and flouncy, puffy, lacey pages...but my first one didn't come out like that.  I am learning and changing my theory as I work. Mine won't be vintage. It won't be tons of lace. But..it will have lots of lace and other embellishments ...and a memory on each page....even if that memory hasn't been made yet, there will be a space on the page for it when it happens. 


So.. here is my first page. My (now) 14 year old grand daughter when she was 2, loved a shorts and top outfit I made her with an apple theme fabric...called it her "apple shirt". She out grew the shorts pretty quick as she has always been pretty tall...but the shirt..she wore for about 2 years and it was the first thing she thought to do when she came to my house. I'd say "let's go outside" and she'd immediately run to change shirts! It was so cute and a great memory for me...and recently when she saw the fabric in my stash...she said she remembered the shirt and why. So since I am one that has to have a reason for anything I do...well...the page had to have a memory..and the apples won.

My first page

I have a very hard time with pictures turning out right. but....it is white with a white flower basically. The fabric in the middle as you can see, is the piece of fabric I had saved. I trimmed it with lace and a gold trim. I made a fabric flower with a large button in the center. To the bottom right there...I use beads with letters on them to spell out "Apple Shirt" and sewed them to the page with a strip of fabric and gold trim and embellished with another button.

Double rows of lace on the edges and red ric-rac to finish it off. Granted, this is not as embellished and lacy and "done up" as most I have seen or follow, but..it is my first page and I have done a few since, and they have more "stuff" on the page.

And the memory of this page is.....

The memory part of this page is... pull the flower out and it is attached to a tag. On the front of the tag is a picture of her in the outfit and the back I will (either) type or hand write a little note about her and the outfit and it slides into a pocket made by the fabric.

I guess I should mention.. I wanted 8x10 pages so I cut 9x11 pieces of white bleached muslin and very thin batting. I sewed the edge lace on first then did the other pieces. So this is the way I am going with my fabric book. I have made a few pages since and they have more lace on but...you have to start somewhere! Fabric lace books I have been seeing in searches have tons more lace and embellishment on them... and I will get there soon but for now.. I think this is a great start!

I'd like to share a few "tricks of the trade" I have learned. A fabric book is not as complicated as you might think it is from looking at a picture of it. And not as expensive to buy supplies...if you know what to do or look for to use. I have alot of "tricks" but will not bombard you with all of them at once, so I'll just start with lace.

Make your own lace...with lace yardage and fabric

My first "find" was... lace yardage. Instead of paying a big price for some nice lacey lace....buy a yard of lace fabric (Use your 50% off coupon at Joann's!) and then make your own lace. Lay the fabric out,  salvages matching...and cut (with your rotary cutter and healing matte)  2,1/2 inch wide strips.  Then, take the strip and fold it in half (cut edges matching) and press. Then either by hand or basting stitch on the sewing machine...sew a gather stitch the length of the strip. Tada!  Gathered lace! Perfect for the page edges. You can use fabric to do this too. Cut same as you did with the lace and gather. A great place to find lace yardage...check the thrift stores...in the skirt isle. A lace skirt makes a lot of gathered lace strips!

Make a Lace and Fabric Flower

Or...gather a length of lace and/or fabric and pull it tight and you have a lace flower! Just add a button or even another smaller floral flower to the middle and you have beautiful lacey, vintage looking flowers for an embellishment on your page... like in this picture. You can use two colors of lace, one smaller than the other and lay the smaller one on top and then a button and...instant lacey,vintage-y flower! In this picture I used fabric for the first layer and lace for the second layer and 2 buttons for the middle.


Just  make a length of fabric strip and pull tight until you can make a nice circle. do the same with the lace. I sewed the buttons to the flowers, but you can use a hot glue gun.

And here is a cool Youtube video tutorial on how to make flowers from your scraps of lace and ribbon


And this one...  quite a bit "more" than I want or think my GD's will want, but there are some great ideas for pockets and lace organization and things to use. I think I will start to use more beads!

Make floral appliques! 

I also  had some odd ball lace yardage I bought at the thrift store while back. Great price and I figured I'd find a use for it...one day. I looked at it and there is a nice flower pattern in the lace, so I cut the flower image out of the lace!

And one more thing with this "home made lace". To make another option of use...especially  for a vintage look, I poured some of my ice tea into a bowl..and placed the appliques and piece of fabric and let i soak over night as in this picture. Once dried, I now have a beige/cream floral applique and lace...as well as the white!

So I am getting more into this project every day. Since I plan to make several books for my grand daughters...currently 4, and I think I will probably do alot of "assembly line" sewing.... Make the same page 4 times and just change colors!

And if that wasn't enough, I have another GD due in March and was just informed of another one due in August! For these two.. if I don't have any memories of them..yet... and there is always the chance that I won't be sewing like this when they are older... I will just make some pages with pockets so that we can add the memories on down the road. And... I intend to make them each a Quiet Book...a fabric book of "things to do". I made one for my daughter and she loved it and they are pretty easy to make. Won't need those for another year or so tho, so they are at the bottom of the pipeline but will be made!

Thanks for stopping by and if you missed any of my previous posts about the Fabric Lace Memory books...here's previous posts.

Fabric Lace Memory Books: 1. Introduction

Fabric Lace Memory books: 2.How I Organized My Sewing Room

Fabric Lace Memory book: 3. It's coming to life! And so much fun!


Thanks for stopping by and...keep on sewing those memories!


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