How To Make A Fabric Book Cover

In this tutorial I share how I made a few different fabric book covers, including a quilted book cover with contrast binding. I have a really old book where the cover was peeling off and I wanted to make a fabric book cover to help protect it.

These DIY book covers help to protect books from water, dirt or from being scratched up in a bag. I also thought they could be helpful in hiding the cover of a book if you don’t want someone to know what you’re reading. 🙂 Whatever the reason you want to use them for, these fabric book covers are quick and easy to make! They also use very little fabric and are a great project for using up scrap fabric.

Here’s a Table of Contents if you want to skip around to certain steps:

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Some Things You’ll Need

• Fabric – cotton, linen or cotton linen blends work best
• Fabric scissors
• Pins
• All purpose thread
• Measuring tape
• Quilt batting (optional) – for a quilted book cover
• Fusible interfacing (optional) – if you want to add more structure to your fabric

Let’s get started!

Step 1: Take Some Measurements

When measuring the book you want to cover, I suggest rounding up if you want the math a little easier, and to make sure the fabric cover doesn’t end up too snug. Write all these measurements down, and afterwards we’ll add seam allowance.

Grab a measuring tape and with the book close, measure around the total outside width of the book.

Then measure the height of the book cover.

Figure out how far in you want the inside flap to go on the book. On my example, I wanted the finished measurement of the inside flap to be 3.5″.

Add Seam Allowance

Next, we need to add seam allowance. After a few test runs, I decided that 1/2″ seam allowance was a good amount for both hard cover and soft cover books, but we’re going to sew with 1/4″ seam allowance. This gives you the option of topstitching around the edge of the cover, or leaving it and giving the book a little room to breath in the cover.

Note: I noticed with soft cover books, when I topstitched around the edge, it was snug around the book and caused the book cover to bend inside the fabric cover. On hard cover books, they seem to handle the extra snugness fine when I topstitched around the edge of the fabric cover.

Step 2: Cut Out Fabric

Outside cover – So to add 1/2″ seam allowance on all sides, you will add 1″ to the final measurement (1/2″ at each side added together). For example, the cover in my example is 12 1/4″ x 8 3/4″ so I added 1″ to each measurement to get 13 1/4″ x 9 3/4″. This is the measurement that I cut out from my fabric.

You will need two of these panels, one for the outside, and one for the lining.

Inside flap – For the inside flap, the fabric is going to be folded in half. So if you want the finished width to be 3.5″, double that to get 7″ and then add 1″ for the seam allowance (1/2″ for each edge) to get 8″. Then you can take the same height measurement as the outside cover (with seam allowance added). In my example, I cut each inside flap piece at 9 3/4″ x 8″.

You will need two of these panels, one for each inside flap at the front and back of the book.

Step 3: Time To Sew

Fold the inside flap panels in half wrong sides together and press.

Place the inside flaps on the outer cover panel, right sides together, with the folded edges facing the center of the cover. Pin in place.

Baste the inside flaps in place with 1/4″ seam allowance and a long stitch length.

Next, take the lining fabric panel and place it right sides together on top of the outer panel, sandwiching the inside flap in between.

Pin everything in place, making sure to leave an opening along one of the long edges.

Sew along the outside edge of the panels with 1/4″ seam allowance, backstitching at the beginning and end of the opening.

Trim the corners to help reduce bulk, making sure not to cut through the stitches.

Turn everything right side out through the opening, and poke out the corners with a point turner.

Press the edges well, making sure to press in the seam allowance at the opening.

Starting at the edge when the opening was left, topstitch all around the edge with 1/8″ seam allowance.

If you’re skipping the topstitch, then all you need to do is close up the opening either with an edgestitch, or hand stitch the opening closed with a slip stitch.

And your book cover is done! Try the cover on the book and admire the cuteness. 🙂

Variation 1: Quilted Fabric Book Cover With Binding

This version has a little bit more work involved, but I love how it looks with a constrasting binding. You will take all the same measurements as before, but instead of making a lining and turning it right side out, you will be quilting two layers together, and then finishing the raw edge with binding – kind of like making a mini quilt.

I will briefly go over the binding steps, but my tutorial How To Bind A Quilt goes into more detail.

Step 1: Take Some Measurements

Measure the book that you want to cover following the same steps from the beginning of this tutorial. Don’t forget to add seam allowance! I added 1/2″ seam allowance to the panels like before, but sewed with 1/4″ seam allowance.

You will need two panels for the cover, one piece of batting, and two panels for the inside flap.

Note: When stitching the batting to the fabric, the measurements can warp a bit, so you may want to add a little extra seam allowance. You can always cut it back down later. The cover ends up a little bulkier too, so extra seam allowance can help the cover from ending up too snug on the book.

Step 2: Sew Batting To Fabric

Cut out a piece of batting the same size as one of the cover panels.

Make a little quilt sandwich by putting one panel right side down, the batting in the middle, and then the second panel right side up. Make sure all the edges are lined up, and place a few pins to keep the layers from shifting around.

Mark out quilting lines with a hera marker, fabric marker or chalk. I marked diagonal lines spaced 1″ apart, in one direction first, stitched along those lines, then marked lines in the opposite direction. A quilting foot is helpful, although not necessary, because it helps feed the layers more evenly and prevents puckering.

I marked diagonal lines in the opposite direction and then stitched along those lines. The quilted book cover is now ready to be assmembled!

Step 3: Sew Inside Flaps

Now, take the inside flap pieces, folded in half wrong sides together, and pin them to each short side of the quilted cover. Make sure the folded edge is facing towards the center of the cover, and line up the raw edges.

Baste along the edges of the inside flap pieces with a 1/4″ (or less) seam allowance.

Tip: At this point, check to see that the book fits in the cover before attaching the binding.

Step 4: Prepare Binding Strips

If you need more detailed steps on how to attach binding strips, the same method for a quilt, head over to my tutorial How To Bind A Quilt.

Pick what fabric you want for your binding, and start cutting out strips – you can cut these on the straight grain since we’re not binding on any curves. I cut 2″ wide strips, but you may want to cut 2 1/4″ or 2 1/2″ wide strips depending on the bulk of the quilted layers, or to make the binding process a little easier. Cut strips until you have enough to go around the outside edge of the cover.

Sew the short ends of the binding strips together to make one long strip, and then press the binding in half wrong sides together.

Start pinning the binding along one of the long sides of the cover, leaving a tail of about 4″. I usually just place a few pins at the beginning, but then will leave the rest of the binding loose and sew it to the edge as I go. Sew the binding all around the edge with 1/4″ seam allowance.

Note: If you’re wanting to machine stitch the binding down, like I did in my example, then sew the binding to the wrong side (in this case, the side with the inside flaps). Then the binding gets folded over and stitched down on the right side. If you plan on hand stitching the binding, I would sew the binding down on the right side of the cover, and hand stitch it down on the wrong side.

When you reach the corner, stop 1/4″ away, backstitch and cut thread. Fold the binding up and away to make a 45 degree angle, hold that in place, then fold it back down and place the raw edge of the binding to the next edge of the quilted cover.

If you need help at the corners, it may help to watch how I do them in the video below, starting at 18:56.

Continue sewing around the edge of the quilted cover, repeating those steps at the remaining 3 corners. Stop sewing before you get to the beginning, leaving about a 4″ gap (like shown below).

Bring the binding to meet about halfway between the two stopping points, and press to make a crease. This will be your guideline when sewing the strips together. Open up the two ends of the binding strips and place them right sides together, lining up along the mark you made (you can also draw this in with a fabric marker). Pin the two ends together.

Stitch along that marked line, and trim off the excess binding. Tip: Check that the binding is the right length before trimming off the extra – just in case you need to make any adjustments. Press the seam allowance open, fold the binding back in half, and sew that last stretch of the binding on to the quilted cover.

Press the binding away from the cover. Then fold the binding over to the other side to just cover the previous stitch line. Pin in place and either machine stitch or hand stitch the binding in place.

Note: Something I wish I had done, and will do next time, is hand stitch the binding down. My binding didn’t turn out as neat as I wanted, and I think hand stitching would get a nicer (and invisible) finish.

At the corners, I adjusted the binding to make a 45 degree angle and pinned it in place. I found the corners tricky when machine stitching the binding, and they turned out a little wonky.

Your quilted book cover is done!

Place the book inside its new cozy, quilted cover. 🙂

Variation 2: Quilted Fabric Book Cover

I wanted to share one more version of a fabric book cover with you. This one combines the quilted element of the second version with the lining element of the first version, but is a little easier since it skips binding the edges.

For this quilted book cover, I wanted to try a patchwork version, so I made a bunch of half square triangles until they were the same size as the book cover measurements.

For a half square triangle tutorial, head over to my article How To Make Half Square Triangles.

I then cut out a lining panel piece and the inside flap panels. I ended up using fusible interfacing on half of the inside flap pieces, because the fabric I picked was pretty lightweight.

Since I was sewing this cover with a lining, I hand quilted the patchwork panel to a layer of batting with no fabric underneath.

I basted the inside flaps to the lining panel, placed the patchwork outer panel right side down, and stitched with a 1/4″ seam allowance all around, leaving an opening on one long side.

I clipped the corners, turned everything right side out, and gave the cover a good press. I topstitched all around the edge, but this ended up making the cover a little tight since the patchwork fabric was pretty bulky, so it would have been better without it.

I was really happy with how this one turned out! It was a gift for my mom who wanted to cover a well loved book that needed some extra protection.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! I would love to hear if you end up making your own fabric book cover. 🙂