So, what is a Book Buddy, you may ask? Good question!
This is a Book Buddy, it's literally as simple as a bookmark that marks the page with an elastic and sits on the outside of a book, holding pens (and rulers if you REALLY like straight lines). It's great for text books, bibles and bible study books. If you don't want to ruin the spine of your book by jamming it full of highlighters, pens, or pencils, but you love to highlight and take notes this is a nifty little device to have! Pretty cool right? (umm... maybe?)
So why am I telling you all this? Glad you asked! Since you can't pick these up at the check-out counter at your local bookstore (seriously, why isn't this a thing!) it's necessary for those of you with some basic sewing skills, and a love of highlighted/underlined pages to make these bad boys yourself! Ready for a tutorial? I know I am!!
Book buddies: What you need
Scrap material for base, I used thicker materials like cotton twills, cut into rectangles of desirable sizes, mine are about 2" by 6" + 1cm seam allowance. Cut 2
Scrap material for the pocket, this can be thinner material such as extra quilting cotton, slightly smaller than your base material, I only had my pocket about 1/8" smaller around the side and bottom and about 1 1/2 inches shorter, Cut 2
Elastic (black looks more professional than white, but that's preference), for the length of the elastic it's best to judge based on the size of the book, wrap your elastic around just the front cover of your book, leaving the 6 or so inches for the book buddy to know how long it should be, make sure your elastic is stretchy enough to also go around the whole book.
Very stiff fusing, used for making purses, cut to the size of the base, no seam allowance for the fusing.
Sewing supplies, such as a machine, pins, ect. A point turner is very useful for this project, but not necessary.
How to make:
I started with the pocket. For this project I decided to make lined pockets, just to keep them cleaner and more durable.
Right sides together, sew your two pocket pieces together, leaving enough of a gap to flip the pocket inside out.
Invert the pocket so that the right sides are facing out,
Iron the fusing onto one of the two base material pieces, making sure you're centred properly for the seam allowances.
Sew the pocket onto the base piece that has the fusing, which will close the opening left for the lined pocket. Pro tip: When your sewing pockets or other stitches that people will see it's nice to increase stitch length to 3mm instead of 2.2, just adds a nice touch :).
Once the pocket is sewn on, make sure it's square to the edges of the fusing (flip the piece over and look at your stitching from the fusing side, where you can see it more clearly. It's the worst thing ever to finish the project just to have the pocket crooked.
With your perfectly straight pocket sewn onto your base piece you're ready to put the whole thing together. Centre and pin the elastic to the top and bottom of the top base piece, the one with a pocket.
(sorry that the picture's blurry... oops :/)
Making sure that the elastic is tucked inside, place the second base piece on top of the first one, right sides together (make an elastic sandwich) and sew along the edge of your fusing, not on the fusing though, the seam will be pretty bulky if you do. Leave a gap like you did for the lined pocket. Clip the corners and invert the base pieces so the right sides and the elastic are out and the fusing is now on the inside. Press.
Stitch along the edges of the outside of the book buddy, closing the gap left open and creating a cleaner edge.
That's it! You're done! Highlight and underline to your heart's content without ever ruining your book spines again! Yay! Make some more for all your friends and family :)
with love.
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