written by Professional Model Stitcher Stacey Wells for Stitching the Night Away
Bookmarks are great quickies to stitch up. Nice gifts for Teachers or just that special reader in your life. They are also often done for exchanges or charities. Here are a couple of neat ways of finishing the bookmark if you are not using a pre-finished item:
Fusible Web
Cover the back of the stitching with fusible web, and find a nice piece of matching fabric. Cut the piece to fit the back of the bookmark and follow the directions on the package to apply it properly. This is a quick finish.
Frayed Edge
Stitch backstitching as a border around your stitched bookmark, and then go ahead and fray the edges up to one square of the backstitching. Play around with this try using a complimentary color to the bookmark or even a nice hand dyed. You could even stitch full a full ‘x’ instead of the backstitch border.
Sewing
Measure stitching for example 3” will be used as the stitched width. So if stitched bookmark is 3” wide cut your fabric 1 ½” plus eight squares of the fabric on each side. Fold bookmark in half stitching on the inside. Take a seam (machine or hand) eight squares from the raw edges lengthwise. Turn bookmark inside out. It will help to wear latex gloves for the turning. You can then fray the top & bottom edges.
