Patchwork Book Cover

A while ago, I was lucky enough to receive a softie full of scraps from Paula, and I used some of them this afternoon, in a random sort of way, to make a book cover.
For the base I used a synthetic type of felt, sold here in rolls for use as dusters and cleaning cloths, but sturdy enough to use for stiffening postcards and as a base for foundation piecing. I laid my hard backed notebook open on the felt, marked two long sides and one short side, then holding the marked end in place, closed the book, flipped over the felt and marked it at the other short end. This gave me the extra width needed to allow for the wire ring binding. I then marked a working line half an inch outside this rectangle. This allows for a little take up when you sew on the fabric, and leaves a little overlap when finished that helps to protect the pages.

The next step was to cut two equal inner pieces, the same height as the book cover and an inch or so narrower than one cover, and to put these to one side. Then I started on the fun bit; covering the base in a random foundation piecing sort of way. The four triangles cried out to be corners, so I marked roughly where they would be, then filled the space in between. As usual, my camera has its own take on colours, because those blue looking patches on the left are green, and so are the blue ones in the picture below...
Having filled the whole of the area, I turned it over, back side up, and machined close to the edge. I then trimmed all the edges back to this line, and checked it for size against the book. I pinned my cover pocket pieces to each end and machined again over my line, double checked for size on the book, then did a close zig-zag all around the edge, enclosing all the raw edges and making the pockets for the book boards. I am quite happy with it as it is, but if I make another one, I shall probably cover the inside with a piece of material so that the stitching is not visible, and maybe attach some ties and somewhere to slot a pen or pencil.