Wednesday, February 07, 2024

School Agenda Cover on Free Motion Mavericks

Hi and welcome to week 568 of Free Motion Mavericks. At the end of January I made a school agenda cover for my niece while she was visiting. It was quickly done and it's now keeping her organised in Copenhagen! 😊 

School Agenda Cover


When I told my niece that I make a new agenda cover each year, I saw her eyes light up. Of course she was too polite to ask, so when I figured out that I had enough time to make her one before she went back to school, she was thrilled. She came over for tea and then we looked at fabric. She sure is her parents' daughter - she choose a black gradation with silver triangles. 

Front of my niece's school agenda cover

Back of the school agenda cover - FMQ with triangles

I don't have any progress pictures. Here's a pictures of the lining and then of the open agenda. In the first image you can see that the side panels are made up of the same fabric as the front. However, my fabric wasn't long enough so I pieced it and then added decorative stitches to highlight it.

Side panels with decorative stitching and the lining

The open agenda

Finally, here is a photo of the front and back of the open agenda. The FMQ is easier to see when the flecks of silver are less prominent. For the FMQ, I made a couple of wavy lines and then quilted linked triangles and repeated four times.

School agenda cover open to show the front and back FMQ

I don't usually know much about my fabric but in this case, I bought 6 fat quarters from the same collection. It's called Snippets by Chelsea Design Works for Studio E fabrics. I had purple, pink, red, bleu and teal, but she chose black!

What I learned
  • Since I've made many quilted journal and agenda covers, it was fairly quick to find the information that I required to make it. It's from a Craftsy course, Free Motion Quilted Gifts with Christina Cameli.
  • Over the years, I have written lots of comments in the instruction PDF. These have been very useful. However, I didn't realize how thick an agenda can be compared to most of the journal covers that I've made. I also had to take into account the rings that hold the pages. 
  • This agenda cover was very tight. Since I didn't give it to my niece until the next day, I used a book making trick. I very carefully added clips around the sides of the agenda and then covered it with a few heavy books. This helped the agenda flatten out and stay closed.
  • When I made my own agenda cover a few days later (PQ 15-2, Sky colours), I made the cover an extra inch wider. It was probably too much and the cover is a little big, but it's not too tight!
  • I find that when I do something that isn't part of the original design, like piecing the side panels, it's good to actually highlight them as a design feature. I was lucky that the piecing of both panels ended up at roughly the same spot. I used a different fancy stitch over each of the the seams.
Related links
Linking parties
I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. Why not check them out after you've linked up below? Design Wall Monday, Sew & Tell, Midweek Makers, Put your foot down, Off The Wall FridayCan I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Beauties Pageant, Finished (Or Not) Friday, TGIFFPatchwork & Quilts,

Project Details

Free Motion Quilted (FMQ) Agenda Cover
based on "Free Motion Quilted Gifts" on Craftsy
Size: 8" x 9"
Materials: commercial cotton, batting and thread
Technique: free motion quilting and sewing






Free Motion Mavericks


As always, thanks to everyone who linked up!

Donnalee finished reorganizing her stash and closet and found some lovely fabrics that she made into table toppers and runners

Lovely table toppers and runners, made from "found" fabric!

Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts had two of her quilt patterns published lately. Kashvi was published in Make Modern #55, while Sunshine Garden, is in Annie's Scrap-Happy Quilts. Congrats!

Kashvi - published in Make Modern #55

Sunshine Garden by Preeti
It's now your turn 😎

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4 comments:

  1. I love that cover! The quilting lines look like force fields in space and the silver particles are the debris from meteors! Hmm, fanciful imagination I seem to have. Thanks for linking with TGIFF!

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    Replies
    1. Hi Chris, I love your fanciful interpretation of the FMQ design and fabric. I totally agree with you. Thanks for inviting me to see more than lines and linked triangles :-)

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  2. What a great cover!! And I love that idea of a new one for each year... now you have me thinking ;-)

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Alycia, it's always so cool to make a totally different cover each year.

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