New Grandma Wants to Sew!: Quiet books - a technique for making pages removable

I enjoy making quiet book pages, but there is always a question of how to bind them, how to display them etc. In the case of single pages, I would prefer to do them back to back (after sewing each page) and using grommets to attach them into a file, or using a set of ties etc. That way, they can be taken out of the book to play with.

My problem was that so many of the pages I liked (and wanted to copy) are actually double page spreads. For example, many of the pages which come with templates by Imagine Our Life. (For more ideas, see below.) So removing those meant removing two separate pages. And if the designs on the back are also double page spreads, you can end up with multiple pieces. (Also tricky if there are lots of loose bits.)

So I came up with a plan, which works for me, and might work for you. To find out more, and for links to other useful pages, read on.

I decided I would make most of my sections of the book as a double page spread with two singles on the back. But each section folds together and makes a complete removable piece.

The above picture shows one such section. The two right hand pages are the double page spread. This is Imagine Our Life's Sock Matching Game. The two left hand pages are single pages. They are lined up quite carefully so that the folds are in the right place. You can see that all 4 bits have been sewn on while the whole thing is flat. Like this:

I started with sheeting in long strips 44" x 9 1/2" (but you can change this according to the size of the pages you want to end up with.) That's the light blue backing you can see around all the separate pages. This left me enough round the edges for 1/4" hems. So it's important your felt pages don't go right to the edges. I made each of the individual pages on their own felt backing, and stitched the felt pages in place on the sheeting (with the 1/4" hems already pressed to the back of the sheet)

Next, I folded it in half between the laundry basket and the washing machine, and sewed round all the edges (including the fold, to give it extra stability). But on the outside edge, I inserted a small fold of elastic cord to make a button loop. The picture below is from a different section, but you can see the loop on the right hand side.

So you now have the section folded in half, and (if you've done it correctly!) you'll have the double page spread on one side, and the two singles on the other.

Here are some of the double page spreads. You can see each has a small gap in between the two halves, to allow for it to be folded again in the middle. Actually, they don't fold quite in the middle, but they fold leaving a margin on the left of about 3/4" to 1". This leaves enough on the left for punching holes - more about that shortly.

So here, for example, is the 'front of a double page spread, the laundry pages.

And this shows the 'back' of the laundry double pages spread, i.e. the two single pages on the back. When the pages are folded and fastened, only these two pages are visible.

Here are a couple more double page spreads.

Two final steps. First, I sewed a small button on the left hand side of each double page spread. This enabled the right hand to be folded onto the left hand and buttoned together.

And finally, I punched two holes and fixed grommets so that the folded page could be put in a ring binder.

Here you see pages in the folder, with the double page spreads all folded for storage. You can saee that with the shapes of pages I chose, I had to buy A4 hoizontal format files, which are available but are not cheap. Many people make their own covers, but I wanted ring bionders so that individual double pages could easily be taken out and put back.

You can see it all makes for quite a fat book! In here, I have four full double pages spreads comprising a double page and two singles, and one page with two singles back to back. I had wanted to do one more doulbe pages (Imagine our Life's airport scene), which I thought would be perfect for our journey. However, I was running out of time (with several other sewing projects in hand) and, as the two singles were finished, I just backed them to each other.