Bible Cover

On Father's day I decided to gift DH with an embroidered cover for his Bible. It's paper jacket was getting ratty, and a lovely embroidered cover would protect it much better.

I had some Cordura from Textile Outfitters, and some nice, heavy, lining left from a messenger bag project a few years ago. The mass-produced zippered Bible covers are made from similar fabrics. If I was making this for myself, I'd use a prettier fabric--it doesn't have to be this tough!

Seems to me that those Bible covers with zippers and handles are a little too much, so I just made a simple cover with flaps to hold the Bible in. Kind of like those paper ones that we used to put on the Math textbook in Jr High. I found several references to guide me:

• Sew News (beware of the pop-ups here) has a couple of different projects:
  • Archived bookcover instructions
  • Lee's bookcover with handles
• Wright's (the trim folks) has a cool purse/bookcover project
• Edupatterns has a Bible cover pattern, too.

Mine turned out pretty well, although a few things could be better. It was a little big, because I couldn't take the Bible upstairs for measuring--DH would have known what I was doing. (Later I took it apart and fixed it.) And, I intended to sew in a bookmark but forgot. DH teaches Sunday School and has his own set of bookmarks that the kids made, so forgetting that was not a problem.

Even with the mistakes I made, it's a quick easy project and a well-received gift.

	Here's a photo of the outside of the finished cover. A visitor just emailed me to say that the design is available at Glory Designs. (Thanks!) It says "Jesus, I thy little child would be, help me Lord to live for thee."
	You can see that this is just a cover like we used to put on our textbooks, except I never lined my textbook covers.
	Here's what an empty flap looks like.
	You can see how the flap protects the cover.