I love making quiet books with a theme. I have many I want to make and “Under the Sea” was number one! In the process of making this “Under the Sea” quiet book I made new discoveries that I can’t wait to share with you.
First, I learned that using a combination of fabric and felt made for a more interesting Quiet Book. I realized I prefer using fabric for the pages instead of felt because I love the way it looks AND I love using fusible batting. Fusible batting works extremely well with cotton fabrics and saves a lot of time in the binding process; I don’t think I’ll go back to regular batting! Link for Fusible batting is below. The pages are 8 inches by 8 inches. The fabric I used in this quiet book came from JOANN and from Jackman’s Fabrics.
Materials needed for Under the Sea Quiet Book
- 2 fat quarters or 1/2 yard of cotton fabric for pages
- 1/2 yard fabric for binding
- Scrap fabric for activities such as mesh fabric, velvet fabric
- Felt buy here
- Iron-on Letters buy here
- Fusible Batting buy here
- Googly eyes buy here
- Ribbon, string and buttons
Under the Sea Quiet Book Pages
Page 1 Swimming Fish
These little fish are attached by ribbon with the ribbon sewn to the bottom of the page. The water is a scrap piece of blue velvet fabric attached to blue felt. I used the wave stitch on my sewing machine to connect the velvet fabric to the blue felt.
Page 2 Clams and Pearls
The top and bottom of these clams are connected to each other by two pieces of ribbon. To create texture for the clam, sew a design with your sewing machine. To find the pearls inside, open the clams and look in the pockets.
Page 3 Turtle Puzzle
This Turtle puzzle is a great activity for kids of all ages. The puzzle pieces were made from felt and are inside his shell. The turtle’s shell is made out of a textured scrap fabric which was sewn to felt. This particular fabric creates friction between the felt pieces and the shell so no velcro is really necessary.
Page 4 Jelly Fish Tentacles and Ocean Floor
This jelly fish has tentacles to braid and an ocean floor to explore. The ocean floor has a sheer fabric over felt with colorful beads and sequins inside.
Page 5 Feed the Shark
This page has mesh fabric over the buttons. Kids can move the buttons with their fingers in and out of the shark’s mouth.
Page 6 Rainbow Fish
This fabric is so fun to play with especially for little hands! I bought this sequin fabric from JOANN. I bought 1/8 of a yard and it was plenty for this project and for more to come. Swipe with your finger to reveal silver scales as shown below.
For more information about how to bind a quiet book check out our tutorial here.
Thanks for reading and happy making!
