Where's Audrey

It all started with my sweet little granddaughter who seemed to be fascinated with zippers, buckles etc as all little 3 year olds seem to be. A book was in order to help her with these skills. I had never made anything like this and was floundering on how to do it. 

I had this very cute print of "cartoon-y" type faces and my first thought was "It reminds me of that series of books - Where's Waldo" - hence the name "Where's Audrey". Her face appears twice on the cover.

Here's my little Audrey who was the subject of this book.

I started by pulling out and buying lots of cute, child friendly fabrics. I decided on the page size of 8 1/2 x 9 1/2, not including the edge for binding. I cut heavy duty fusible craft interfacing (not fusible web or Pel-tex which is too heavy) and fused it to the wrong side of each page. I left a wider edge on the one side as the "binding" side and additional fabric (@1/2") all around the other 3 sides.

I also cut a very narrow strip of the same fusible interfacing - @ 5/8" for reinforcement for whatever I decided on to use to bind the book. I didn't bring this narrow strip all the way over to the large piece of fusible, I wanted fabric left in between so the book would bend easily when done.

After stitching on the front of the fabric, I did bring the raw edge around to the back, sprayed with a fabric adhesive to hold them in place - more on how I finished these edges later.

I was a lot of fun deciding on all the skills, where to place them in the book, fabrics to use. This page was to be use Velcro as fasteners. The chick and egg are in place.

Googly eyes were glued on the chick and a top to cover him up. You can see the white Velcro tabs.

To create a freestanding piece with a clean edge, I fuse the back and front together with right sides facing out. I lay the piece over water soluble stabilizer and stitch over the edge with a satin stitch. Your stitch goes into the fabric and swings over to the edge/stabilizer - no knots or tangles as you're not stitching on "air" but into the stabilizer; the only little "pokies" left is the stabilizer which can be removed with a damp cloth

I attached the top of the egg across the top...

so it could be lifted easily. I also decided to use a picture of Audrey, printed on fabric and hide it. On this page, it's under the wing. There was an Audrey to find on each page, making it more fun.

I wanted to use a buckle and the smallest I could find was a cat collar. I found this cute little doggie on the "free clip art" website, printed him/her on fabric and appliquéd it to the surface. I found some great fabric of bones and bow-wows to mount it on.

Audrey is under his/her ear.

Lacing was another skill I included. I found this adorable princess fabric and made a vest to go on top. White curtain rings were attached and ribbon strung through that tied at the top.

And there's Audrey as one of the princess's.

Buttons and buttonholes were another skill I used. I chose big colorful buttons I thought she could manage. I also had in my stash some wonderful, whimsical flower fabric to serve as a background. Dimensional round flowers were made with buttonholes in the center that buttoned over the button.

and there's Audrey under the leaf.

Little ones are always losing their mittens and although there's not a whole lot of days that require mittens in Atlanta, I thought I would include them anyway. I started with one of my hand dyed fabrics that looked like sky and appliquéd a clothesline across. The clips have grosgrain ribbon holding them in place and caught in the appliqué stitch.

The mittens were two-toned in Audrey's favorite colors...

and also dimensional so they could be picked up to find....

Audrey underneath. This is only the beginning think I wound up with 20 pages including covers but will share more next time.