A 100 Day Project made into two textile books;a Make Nine finish

A revisit to my 100 Day Project from 2023 resulted in a two-volume set of stitched and collaged textile books. I learned the slot-and-tab binding technique through this year’s 100 Day Stitch Book project, and decided to use it to compile the individual stitched and collaged compositions from 2023 into a finished piece—a book. Learning from the experience with the 100 Day Stitch Book, the assembly for these two books was smooth and I couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome.

100 Day Project 2023.
Volume I (left) and Volume II of stitch and fabric collaged compositions.

The new books required covers

With 18 compositions to work into a textile book (a lot of pages that would make a very thick book!), I decided to divide the compositions into two volumes. This made the assembly more manageable and allowed the compositions to relax and expand on the pages.

Making two books/volumes required making two [new] book covers. With these newly stitched covers, I was able to document the name of the project. This is the cover for Volume I (a 12-page book + cover) …

Cover for Volume I. Measurements: 9.75” x 9”

… and this cover is for Volume II (an 8-page book + cover).

Cover for Volume II. Measurements: 9.75” x 9”

In my group of stitched compositions, I had one partially finished page. I decided to finish it so there would be less blank pages. This made a total of 19 compositions divided into two books.

• Volume I: 12-page book with 11 stitched compositions.
• Volume II: 8-page book with 8 stitched compositions.
• Front and back covers are in addition to the inside pages.

A partially completed page from 2023 was finished in 2025 and added to the book.

The inside compositions/pages were all 9” square. The front and back covers, as well as the inside front and inside back covers, were cut slightly wider, at 9.75” x 9”, to accommodate the spines. 

View of the book spines.

View of the front and back covers that wrap around to create the spine.

Discoveries, notes, and tips

To make note of a few things for future slot-and-tab books:

• All the pages are yarn-dyed fabrics [from Diamond Textiles] which are a dream for hand stitching.
• The surged edges of the book’s pages helped when turning the signature right-side-out.

Sewing past the corners on each side.

• When sewing the signatures, I sewed off the edges at the corners (rather than pivoting and turning). The stitch line was used as the guide for turning the corners right-side-out.
• I love the stitching on the backs (wrong sides) as much as the stitching on the fronts! So, I took photos of the compositions (fronts and backs) before assembling the signatures. 

Back sides of two of the stitched compositions.

• The paper folding dummies were extremely necessary as the slot-and-tab assembly does not follow the conventional pagination scheme for book signatures. 
• I’m thinking about adding a pocket in one of the books to hold the paper dummies.

Paper folding dummies for pagination.

Four-page signatures.

Here are a few of my favorite page spreads.

Page spread. 100 Days of Stitch and Fabric Collage, 2023. 

Page spread. 100 Days of Stitch and Fabric Collage, 2023. 

Page spread. 100 Days of Stitch and Fabric Collage, 2023. 

The left page on the spread (below) was the newest composition that was started in 2023 but completed this year.

The additional, new composition is on the left.

A Make Nine 2025 Finish

These textile books are fulfilling one of the UFO prompts for Make Nine 2025.

Make Nine 2025 “UFO” prompt.

Make Nine 2025 tracker. June 1, 2025.

The last page of Volume II.

I’m happy to have these stitched compositions from my 100 Day Project from 2023 in book form. And I do see more slot-and-tab textile books in my future.

Create Daily Tracker 2025, entering the summer season

Today is June 1 which means the first five months of 2025 are behind us. We’re entering the month of June and the summer season. Here’s a check-in on the progress of my Create Daily Tracker for 2025, with five months completed.

January - May, 2025, Create Daily Tracker.

Tracker analysis

January - May consisted of 151 days.

• 100 days were spent on the 100 Day Project for 2025 [Jan. 17 - April 26], the 100 Day Stitch Book. If I spent a significant amount of time also working on another activity that day, I included a small box of with another color in the box for that day.
• 31 days in January were spent working on the January Junk Journal project.

The percentages of time spent on various activities were:

• 5% sewing and garment construction.
• 7% free-motion quilting, which was mostly charity quilts.
• 11% was spent on art projects—painting, collage, art journaling, etc.
• 12% on knitting/yarn projects
• 18% piecing and patchwork
• 40% slow stitching and mending; this includes the 100 Day Stitch Book, and the last half of the Winter of Care and Repair Challenge that started on the Winter Solstice and concluded on the Spring Equinox.

11 days (7%) are marked as Finishes—completed projects from any/all of the above categories/activities.

January - May 2025 creative activities.

With the completion of this year’s 100 Day Project—which involved a lot of hand stitching—the remainder of the year should balance out the percentages of each activity. Unless, however, I stumble upon another enticing slow stitch project in the upcoming months.

Revisiting my 2023 100 Day Project: the book assembly

While learning how to do the slot-and-tab bookmaking technique for this year’s 100 Day Stitch Book, I’ve decided to revisit my 100 Day Project from 2023, 100 Days of Fabric and Stitch Collage, and make those compositions into a soft book as well. In the 2023 100 Day Project, I completed 18 textile collage compositions and now I have a good way to assemble them into a book.

Folding dummy and textile compositions for a new soft stitch book.

Preparing the signatures

I have 18 completed textile collage compositions (book pages) from the 2023 project. After my experience with a 20-page (plus cover) slot-and-tab book for my 2025 Stitch Book, I’ve decided to make two books out of these compositions.

Figuring out the page spreads and the signatures was quite challenging. In order to work with 4-page signatures—and not have too many blank pages—I finished this additional composition (below) that was started back in 2023 but not completed.

This composition, finished this year, is an additional page for one of the books.

I’m also designing and stitching covers for both of these books… an additional time commitment.

Layout and collage prep for one of the book covers.

I’m excited to start sewing the signatures and see the collage compositions take shape into a book form, but I’ll have to finish stitching the covers before assembly can begin. I hope to make significant progress over this Memorial Day holiday weekend.

Beginning free-motion quilting class, August 1-3

Do you want to quilt your own quilts? Does free-motion quilting pique your interest? Would you like to learn how to free-motion quilt using your home sewing machine? If you answered “Yes!” to any of these questions… join me at the John C.Campbell Folk School in August for “Intro to Free-motion Quilting.”

Intro to Free-motion Quilting on your home sewing machine, August 1-3, 2025.
John C.Campbell Folk School.

Beginner level, no experience necessary!

This is a beginner level class.  No prior free-motion experience is necessary, but students must know how to operate a sewing machine. We’ll start with the basics and discuss the tools and techniques to get you up and running with successful free-motion quilting.

Free-motion quilting on a domestic sewing machine.

Topics include

In this workshop, we’ll discuss a myriad of topics for successful free-motion quilting, such as

• quilting terminology
• sewing machine set-up
• threads, fiber content, thread weights
• needles and needle sizes
• choosing batting and preparing the quilt sandwich
• helpful tools and supplies for free-motion quilting
• tips for creating your own free-motion designs, and more.

Free-motion quilting designs.

In the Folk School’s spacious and well-lit quilting studio, students will learn and practice continuous line patterns that can be used with traditional or modern quilt styles. Should you be inspired and so inclined, the studio can be opened in the evenings for additional free-motion quilting exploration.

Practice makes progress

One of the ways I like to practice my free-motion quilting is with charity quilts. Here are examples of cuddle quilts (a guild community service project) and kitty quilts (that I donate to local veterinarians). 

Free-motion quilting on a cuddle quilt.

Free-motion quilting on a cuddle quilt.

I often bring a charity quilt top for demonstration purposes and go back to the quilting studio after dinner to spend time with the feed dogs dropped. 

Small charity quilts are a great canvas for practicing free-motion quilting.

With practice, students can easily achieve continuous line quilting designs such as these.

Kitty quilts for the local Cat Clinic.

Sign up for a weekend of free-motion quilting at the Folk School

Spend a weekend at the Folk School, learn a new skill, and meet new quilting friends. Sign up for this “Intro to Free-motion Quilting” weekend workshop (August 1 - 3, 2025) on the John C. Campbell Folk School website. There are limited spaces still available. 

View of the Folk School campus from one of the on-campus houses.

Nature abounds on the sprawling 270-acre campus of the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina. Soak up the beauty and learn free-motion quilting, too. I hope to see you there!

100 Day Project, Stitch Book 2025: a Make Nine finish

In January of 2021, I discovered the 100 Day Project. Since then, I have successfully completed eight of them—including this year’s 100 Day Stitch Book 2025 with Ann Wood. I am counting this project as a Make Nine finish.

100 Day Stitch Book 2025.

Slot-and-tab book binding

The 4-page slot-and-tab signatures are finished and the Stitch Book is assembled. The cover (which was not part of the Stitch Book instructions but was added) was embroidered with “100 day Stitch Book” and the year to document the project. Here are few of the inside page spreads, starting with the first page.

Inside front cover and page 1 of the Stitch Book 2025.

I think a few of the spreads look very cohesive, especially those that had the same background fabric.

Two-page spread of the 100 Day Stitch Book 2025.

As the 100 Day Project progressed, I referenced previously stitched pages and began thinking about side-by-side pages (page spreads). Even though these pages were stitched at different times (not consecutively), the page spread looks intentional.

Two-page spread of the 100 Day Stitch Book 2025.

Two-page spread of the 100 Day Stitch Book 2025.

Two-page spread of the 100 Day Stitch Book 2025.

Here is the last page and the back cover.

Last page and inside back cover of the 100 Day Stitch Book 2025.

Things I learned from making the Stitch Book

The assembling of the pages into the slot-and-tab book structure was quite interesting but somewhat challenging. Were I to make another book with the slot-and-tab construction, here are tips and things I would consider:

• Leave more unstitched margins on the page perimeter. The pages with appliquéd fabrics added to the bulk—especially at the gutter—causing a few pages to not lie as flat as they could have.
• I think less pages would make a better, flatter book. I think an 8-page or 12 page book would be good to try. Or a book with a larger page size.
• Thankfully I added 1 inch to the width of the front and back covers. This allowed the covers to extend past the interior pages. Note: the front and back covers actually wrap around and create the spine of the book, so extra fabric is needed.

View of the slot-and-tab book spine.

View of the stitch book spine.

• For a future book, I would make the “tab” pages with a slightly deeper tab, and the “slot” pages with a slightly larger slot. The initial page assembly of my book was tight and I unpicked a few stitches to accommodate a little bit of “wiggle room.”
• This is a fun scrap buster project. I used four different fabrics I had in my stash for the base pages. With planning, it would be interesting to use the same fabric for all of the pages.
• I would also plan to have front and back covers for the book and incorporate this into the initial design of the book.

A perfect improvisational, stash-busting project

The 100 Day Stitch Book was a good project to use up scraps and random bits of fabric cut-offs. Since this was an “improvisational” themed project, I used scraps specifically from my improv quilts over the years (I’m glad I saved cut-offs from those projects). In addition to scraps from my improv quilts, I incorporated students’ scraps from the “inventory department” of my recent Intro to Improv Quilting class as the Folk School. 

I also used random lengths of embroidery floss, yarn, and perle cotton for the improv stitching and enjoyed researching potential stitches from embroidery books in my library.

Top view of slot-and-tab fabric stitch book.

Make Nine finish: a Wild Card prompt

My 100 Day Stitch Book is fulfilling one of the Wild Card prompts for Make Nine 2025. It was a great 100 Day Project and I would do it again.

Make Nine 2025 Wild Card prompt.

This is the 4th documented completed project for Make Nine 2025.

Make Nine 2025 tracker. 

Assembling the 100 day Stitch Book with the Slot-and-Tab binding method

Last weekend, I completed the final page—number 20—of the  100 Day Stitch Book 2025, a 100 day stitch challenge with Ann Wood. The next step was to use the slot-and-tab binding method to put the stitched pages into book form.

Twenty hand stitched pages for the 100 Day Stitched Book 2025.

Pagination for the Slot and Tab binding method

As someone who studied printing technology, publishing, and bookmaking, I quickly noticed the slot-and-tab binding method does not follow the standard page imposition like traditional book signatures. The number of pages does need to be a multiple of four, but the 4-page folios do not follow the traditional pagination scheme. Slot and Tab binding… a new bookmaking method for me to learn! Ann provides a pagination guide for the Stitch Book challenge on her blog.

Individual pages for the Stitch Book 2025 with the pagination guide.

For the pagination, I considered keeping the pages in the date order of when they were created. But upon laying out and examining all the pages together, several of them lent themselves to cohesive 2-page spreads—which I found more appealing.

Determining page spreads.

As recommended by Ann, I used painter’s tape to number each page as it would appear in the book sequence.

Labeling the book pages.

Adding a cover to my stitch book required a new folding dummy

I also wanted a cover for my book. I had large scrap of a cotton/linen fabric (white fabric with blue rings shown below) from this Berwick Street shirt that I made. It was large enough to cut out covers for the Stitch Book. The covers were cut about 1” wider to accommodate the book’s spine and to make sure the inside pages of the book were covered when the book was closed.

White and blue cotton/linen fabric cover for the stitch book.

With the addition of four more pages—the front and back outside covers, and the inside front and inside back covers—the pagination scheme needed to be updated (my book has 24 pages instead of 20). I made a classic folding dummy (with paper) to determine the page sequence and accommodate the extra four pages.

Using the paper folding dummy to determine the slot-and-tab folios.

Sewing the slot and tab folios

Following Ann’s instructions and using her page template, the pages were sewn into either a slot or tab format.

Sewing the four-page tab and slot folios.

The next steps are turning the signatures right side out and assembling the book. Stay tuned for more Stitch Book assembly.

Free-motion quilting with marking? Follow the patchwork!

Sometimes—maybe more often than not—it’s a quandary choosing a quilting pattern for a quilt top. An all-over pattern with curves, loops, or circles? A combo design of swirls and feathers or double-circles? What to do? 

With this scrappy wreath block quilt top, I decided to “follow the patchwork.”

How to quilt this top? Follow the patchwork!

Free-motion quilting without marking the quilt top

I admit it. I am a “lazy quilter.” If I don’t have to mark a design on a quilt top, I don’t have to 

1. take the time to mark the top, and 
2. I don’t have to remove the marks once I’m finished with the quilting. 

“More free-motion quilting time, less mark time!” is my philosophy for finishing quilts, especially charity quilts.

So, by examining this quilt top, I determined the patchwork was a wonderful candidate for mark-free machine quilting. The wreath blocks were well-defined and the solid setting (no sashing between the blocks) offered an opportunity for a continuous quilting path around the quilt.

Wreath blocks.

A continuous line quilting path: the blocks

For continuous line quilting, first you have to determine a way to quilt each block without tie-offs and having to quilt each block individually. For each wreath, a continuous line of loops could get me around the block. I started in the ditch with the lower part of the loop and continued quilting loops clock-wise (or counter-clockwise) around the block until meeting back at the starting point (see black line below).

The loop pattern (black line) around the wreath and the spiral pattern (green line)
in the center of the block.

Once the stitching line met back at the beginning of the pattern, I stitched in the ditch to travel to the center of the block—the hole of the wreath (see green line above). A spiral of straight lines (rather than circular) started at the perimeter and then spiraled inward to the center. Another stitch-in-the-ditch allowed for a path out of the center and on to the next block.

A continuous line quilting path across the quilt top

Then you have to figure out a way to get from one block to the next to make your way around the quilt.  Working from the middle of the quilt outward, I dropped the needle at the block in the second row in the center column (see black line below). At the bottom of that column, I took a turn and quilted the blocks on the one side of the quilt. Once at the top, I took another turn, quilted across the top and then quilted the remaining side.

Mapping a continuous line quilting path.

Any unquilted intersections (where the corners of four blocks met) were quilted with another pass (green lines above).

Back side of the quilt showing the quilting.

Quilting the borders

The borders were quilted with a continuous zigzag pattern. At the corners, a loop (similar to the loops in the wreath blocks) allowed for the change in direction (quilting path) to the next side. It was another continuous line of free-motion quilting around the perimeter of the quilt.

Quilting pattern at the coreners.

Taller zigzags stretched into the unquilted spaces when needed.

Varying the height of the zigzags around the border.

So, with four quilting passes—three in the center plus the border quilting—this scrappy wreath quilt top is quilted—with no marking needed. The free-motion quilting took 45 minutes!

Quilting view from the back.

Trimmed quilt.

The binding is prepared and will be attached by machine.

Binding for the wreath block quilt.

Take a little time to examine the patchwork and layout of your next quilt top. With a little analysis, a map for the quilting path(s), you can free-motion quilt without marking the quilt top. Just follow the patchwork!