hazel's quiet book, part 1.

there have been some requests among friends and family that i should post my patterns for hazel's quiet book.  i've probably spent fifty hours on this beauty so far - and while it has many imperfections, i love it anyway.

the title page has letters that stick on with velcro so hazel can "spell" her name:

the lion's mouth opens and closes.

the ballerina's shoes can be untied and tied.

the flowers snap into place and can be put on different stems:

the barn page with doors that open and close and finger puppets inside!

and finally, the under the sea page, with a pocket for all the sea creatures:

patterns:  i started by cutting out the largest piece first, and then cutting smaller and smaller pieces as i went.  that way, i didn't have to print a ton of pages.  felt usually comes in 9x12in and i centered the pages on the far right or left of each piece (depending on what side of the page it was going on).  For example, my book cover is on the right of the felt because the binding is on the left of it.  my lion was on the left on the page because he was going on the back of the first page.  when it came to putting the book together, i used a zig-zag stitch to sew the two pages together in a square.  then, just to the left of that stitch about 1/2in i stitched a straight line and then another straight line just to the left of that.  and then i cut the extra felt off.  so by the end i have a page that is about 9in tall and 9.75in wide.  this blog has a decent picture tutorial on the process, although i did mine a little differently.  next time i make a page i will take pictures along the way and post again.  

homemade by jill has some great flower and finger-puppet patterns.  

i used hers for the barn animal finger-puppets.