finished off

Some have asked for more information about the handstitching project a couple of posts ago, so I thought I'd show the finished product.  It's a moleskine cover, pretty much as the one in the Alabama Stitch Book by Natalie Chanin.  Since it's from a book, I can't give much detail as far as how-to, but you can see that it's not really that complicated.  A kit can be ordered from Alabama Chanin, or it can be made from purchased fabric (as this one), or it could be made from pieces of a t-shirt.  I used the stencil provided in the book for the leaf design.

My changes are:
a heart inside the front cover;

signed and dated inside the back cover;

and a bookmark, which I think is essential.  One of the properties of knit jersey is that it curls when you pull it.  That can be annoying, but can also be used to your advantage.  I just cut a strip of jersey with a leaf shape on the end, then cut another leaf to match, and stitched around the two leaf shapes together.  (This keeps the leaf itself from curling so much.)  Then I pulled the strip, and there's a sort of a vine-looking thing.

To attach it, I just tucked the top end between the two layers, and stitched it in place while stitching the folded-in ends to enclose the book cover.