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.