Finished - four new sets of quiet books! Instalment one: Counting

Last night I felt like I had accomplished something big. It's taken several weeks of half an hour per evening to get these eight quiet books (two in each of the four new designs - counting, alphabet, colours and shapes) finished. 

Miss almost 3 loves counting. Almost to the point of obsession at the moment. We're a bilingual family and she now manages to get to 13 in both English and German. Most numbers beyond 13 come out something that sounds a lot like sixteen. Anyway, the point of that is that her bead counter is her favourite page in the Quiet Book that I made her more than a year ago. I wanted to find a way to include one in this counting book, so I decided to just go up to five.

One shoe... two people...

And my two favourite pages: three animal finger puppets and four balloons.

And finally, five fish!

Check it out in more detail in my etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/167004470/toddler-quiet-book-counting-theme? and stay tuned for some patterns and instructions in the coming months.

Lesley :)

Finished!

I actually finished it a few months ago, but it's taken me a while to get around to posting these pictures of the completed book. It was a great feeling to finally put the book together!

Page 1- matching with velcro and magnetic snaps

Because of all the pieces that are just held on by velcro, I thought it best to enclose everything with a zipper. The cover is also interfaced with a light interfacing, and lined with a plain calico fabric. I sewed on loops on the inside to hold the rings. I wanted to use rings so that it would be easy to take pages out and add new ones later.

Pages 2 and 3 - matching with snap fasters, tying a bow

Pages 4 and 5 - fasteners and finger puppets

To put the pages together, I ironed about a centimetre over on each edge and pinned each page back to back with another, then top stitched around the edges. As I had already interfaced each page with a light-medium interfacing, this worked well. For the binder rings, I sewed two small button holes on each page.

Pages 6 and 7 - dress the dolls - velcro

Pages 8 and 9 - fishing with magnets, tent and sleeping bag with zippers

Pages 10 and 11 - matching/using buttons, a page for Mia's car

Pages 12 and 13 - bead counting and potato head

Page 14 - Potatohead pocket

I still find it hard to believe how many hours and how many materials went into making this book. We're saving the book now so that it's a new toy when we fly to Germany in less than two months time.