Saturday, June 26, 2010

Book club

I have a lot of friends who like to read, in fact, most of my friends are avid readers sometimes consuming books like someone would consume a chocolate bar. After some conversations with a few of these friends, we decided starting a book club would be a great way to meet new people and also have a little social time with a nice group of ladies. In February we started a little book club. This included 4 of us- 2 geologists, one geographer, and one educator. It was a little meeting at my house, but we quickly realized it was a nice event. The first book we read was 'City of Refuge' by Tom Piazza. This was a great first book because we all had some interesting insight to bring to the discussion.
We all have pretty busy schedules so it took us until April to get to the next meeting. For the next one we read, 'Let the Great World Spin' by Colum McCann. We also added 2 new readers to the group! It is growing and getting more organized. This month we have read 'Oh Pioneers!' by Willa Cather. Our meeting is this Sunday and I think it will be great to see what a group of strong, highly independent women thought of Alexandra, the main character. It seems so rare to see a strong woman being highlighted in an early American novel. I think at this meeting we will try to get a little better organized, by making a list of books we want to read and setting a monthly rotating date. I think with 5-6 people we can do this and not be too worried when someone misses a meeting.

So in the midst of getting things organized (and me trying to practice sewing), I decided to make everyone a clutch. The cool thing I discovered is that a book fits perfectly within the clutch. So I decided to make everyone one, put inside it a bookmark and a pencil, and say 'happy reading'.
Since I am new to this sewing things, I should say, this is an easy first project and quite a lot of fun. I just wanted to share the steps and hop that others like me can learn to that sewing is not so scary afterall!

Materials:
1/2 yard fabric
1/2 yard fusible interfacing (heavy duty- like Pellon)

1. Cut 2 rectangles (any size, I used ~12 by 20.5 inches) and place them right sides together. Iron straight. Then pin down all four sides, keeping a small hope on one of the short sides to enable to stuffing of the interfaceing. Cut the interfacing ~3/4 inch shorter.

2. Sew 5/8 seam on all sides,remember to leave that 3-4 inch opening.



3. Using the opened hole, turn the project right side out and iron flat. Roll the interfacing and insert it into the project. Flatten it out and iron.

4. Now take the project over and stitch a straight seam across the short side with the hole (~3/8 seam allowance)

5. Then fold the short edge up to create the pocket and stich down the left and right sides.

6. Finally, take to ironing board and iron the flap down, and the back. Over time the clutch will flatten out.

In the end you have a colorful array of bookclub clutches.

1 comment:

  1. I want one :D Even though I'm not in your book club (but you know I would be if I lived there).

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