After the success of my first Quiet Book for my niece, I made another one for my nephew, Teddy. He’s now 3 so the pages I made for him were a bit more advanced than for my niece who only turned 1. The book ended up being a month late for his birthday in May – it just all took so much longer than I thought it would! There are so many fiddley bits and pieces to first of all cut out, then to sew and assemble. Luckily my sister had already started a book for Teddy so she sent me what she had already done, so a couple of pages were basically finished, which was great!

I used the same dimensions as with the first book – partly because I already had the template cut out and partly because all of the images for inspiration I found on Pinterest would fit nicely into this format.

My nephew LOVES trains. Like really loves them! So I had to include a page with trains on. I tried to think of a way to make it more educational, but I went for just making carriages in different colours which can be taken off and rearranged – not every page has to be educational, it’s also to keep the kid quiet when you need to get on with something else! 🙂

I cut out 2 of each colour of train and a million little white rectangles for the windows. I sewed the windows on one of each colour and the velcro on the other of each colour, then I sewed the 2 matching ones together, thus hiding the back of the stitching in between the 2 layers. This was very much like the spots I did for the ladybird on the other book, except I then sewed 2 black wheels onto each train, just sewing them on the top – I did it this way around so the wheels wouldn’t have the coloured stitching attached the 2 trains to each other going across the top. The black engine doesn’t come off and I sewed some strips of grey felt on as tracks.

This shapes page is one my sister had already started – her shapes are better than the ones I made because they’re stuffed and therefore 3D, which is pretty cool. Also she sewed the shapes on the background to match the coloured shapes to, whereas I drew them on with a biro – in the interests of speed!

My sister had made a pouch to keep the shapes in, then I sewed it onto a white background piece to match the sizes I was using. This is on the back of the shapes page.

Phoebe had also made the weaving page, so all I had to do was to sew it onto the background piece of fabric – WIN!

Teddy can already count to 20, but I only had enough beads for this page to go up to 15 unfortunately. There are various ideas for counting pages – like cupcakes with a different number of sprinkles on or cookies with a different number of chocolate chips on. But I went for the beads/ abacus version, and I think it works okay – this isn’t my favourite page, but it is hopefully functional and useful for him to practice his counting.

This is one of my favourite pages – it’s a piggy bank!!

I made a bunch of coins with 5, 10 or 15 on then the piggy has a slit in the top to put the coins into. I thought this could also be a help in practicing adding up.

In the version I saw online they had attached a pencil case on the back, with a hole also cut into it on the side that is closest to the piggy, so the coins go straight into the pencil case. I did buy a pencil case for this purpose, but it was a bit too thick and stiff so I changed my mind and made a pouch, like the one the shapes are kept in (but with the zip near the bottom instead of down the middle). You have to make sure you cut the slit into both backing pieces – each page has 2 white rectangles, so the raw edges are all enclosed and it’s all neat and stronger.

I really like this page too, and it was quite easy to make – not as many different pieces as some of the other pages. The hardest part was making something for the middle of the clock that would allow the hands to rotate to the right time. I used a pin in the end and folded it back on the back of the white fabric. I sewed a piece of felt into the top of the pin at the back to make sure it didn’t poke through the fabric and poke Teddy in the fingers. Obviously you’ll have to sew the clock face on first, then put the middle part through the 2 hands, then through the page.

Under the petals around the edge are the minutes, so this page should help a child to learn to tell the time. I feel that the numbers are not my neatest work – I was already taking ages to finish the book so I drew them on with a sharpy, but I think they would look better embroidered on, if you have more time and aren’t in such a hurry as I was.

I also make a Noughts and Crosses page. Teddy doesn’t totally understand how to play yet – even after he had won, he kept on sticking shapes down until the board was full 🙂

I made the noughts and the crosses in the same way as the ladybird spots in the other book – cut 2 shapes for each finished shape (and one extra for the pouches), sew velcro on one, then attach the 2 shapes together. I then sewed down the board pieces.

This weather page is another of my favourites, though the holding pouches for each weather could have been a little bigger to fit the weathers in more comfortably.

I like the temperature gauge – the orange arrow slides up and down a piece of string, so Teddy can decide how warm the day is, then add the weather icon that best fits the day.

I saw a few different versions of this on Pinterest – some had an umbrella, a sun hat and other props, but I just went for the weather – lightening, snow, cloudy, sunny, partly sunny, rainbow, windy (which is really hard to depict pictorially!), and rainy. Again each one is made of 2 layers, with the velcro sewn on one and then the 2 sewn together – for the ones like snow, lightening and rain, I sewed the lightenings (and raindrops and snowflakes) between the 2 layers. The rainbow was pretty fiddly – I sewed each colour onto a white background.

This is my 3rd favourite page and after all the clothes were cut out, it wasn’t too fiddly to assemble! This is another one my sister was going to make, but she hadn’t really started it – but she had bought the mini pegs, so I didn’t have to get those and she had made templates for the clothes and washing basket. I’m quite pleased with the washing machine – the door is 2 pieces of felt, with a circle of plastic wallet sandwiched in the middle, to make it look like a proper washing machine door. The rest of it is fairly self-explanatory.

I like the fact that you can take washing out of the washing basket, put it in the washing machine, then hang it out to dry on the line. Funny how a boring adult chore can be made into a fun game for a kid!

The last page in the book is one to help a kid learn to tie shoelaces. I can’t really take any credit for this as Phoebe has cut it all out, bought the shoe laces, and bought the eyelets. I did not like attaching these – it took forever, I think because the tools I had were for a slightly different size of eyelet, so I did mash a few. It also seemed to take more force than needed in the many youtube videos I watched to learn how to do it!

They do look cute though, so I guess it was worth the effort in the end.

I bound the book in the same way I explained in my post on my first Quiet Book but I think my measurements were a little off as the cover ended up a tiny bit too small to cover all of the pages, but I’m sure Teddy doesn’t mind – I hope he wouldn’t refuse to play with it because it’s not perfect!

So are you tempted to make a Quiet Book for any kiddies in your life? They are a lot of work, but it’s really quite satisfying when it all comes together. And Phoebe sent me a cute little video of Teddy playing with the book so it was definitely worth it when I saw how much he was enjoying playing with it 🙂
 

 

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