Learning to Read

This delightful little alphabet book I made as a gift for a young man near and dear to my heart. The moment I found it I knew I would make it for him. I discovered the pattern over here at Moda Bakeshop. I searched high and low for an alphabet panel that I could use for this project. Imagine my delight when I came upon the exact panel at my quilt shop. It was on clearance so I was just in time or I may have missed it. You can follow the complete directions in the tutorial but I will show you some of my step-by-step.

Since the panel was on clearance the store did not have any of the original charm pack that was used as contrasting fabric. I was able to find a few fabrics to complement the panel and had a few Kona solids in my stash to fill it out a bit. The original book was made with 26 charm squares which afforded a different backing on each and every letter. I did not have that luxury.

After cutting out all the individual letters I cut squares of paperbacked fusible webbing to sandwich between the letters and their contrasting backing squares. Each letter was matched with a pleasing backround and zig-zagged onto the fabric.

The final step was to hammer grommets into the corners of the letters. This requires cutting a hole in the spot where you need to insert the grommet. I was aghast at the thought of piercing the fabric. Once all the letter blocks have their grommets they are put onto a large ring for the little guy to carry around. I’ll be presenting this little gift to my muse tomorrow night. I hope he likes it!