Under the Sea Quiet Book: Part I

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Create a beautiful handmade gift for the toddler in your life and sew a 9 page Under the Sea Quiet Book using the PDF pattern from Spot of Tea Designs! See your toddler entertained with the colorful aquatic animals and icons in this book while working on counting skills, color recognition, shape sorting and pretend play. Find tips, tricks and favorite tools to use when working with felt to create this unique felt activity book!

Hello new visitor! Thank you for coming to check out this Under the Sea quiet book I created for my now elementary school daughter when she was only 18 months. I previously shared this on my blog and offered the pattern templates for free but ended getting endless questions on creating specific pages, inquires for measurements and general tips on making my felt quiet book.

I’m happy to report that I took the time to go through all the pages of this book and have put together an all encompassing bundle which includes:

• a supply list for whole 9 page book
• a supply list broken out for each page
• life sized patterns
• 18 page pdf document of step by step instructions for each page
• 20 photos of the complete book for your reference.

This Under the Sea Quiet Book PDF Pattern bundle is now available in my Etsy shop for the value price of only $7.50! This is an instant download listing, meaning you can order it at any time and get to work on your sewn creation right away!

What is a Quiet Book:

A quiet book is typically a sewn felt or fabric based book that includes interactive elements on the different pages. They are often themed, as this one is “Under the sea” and often include skill building elements or pretend play activities.

Why I created this Quiet Book:

When my daughter turned one, I realized many of the toys she had enjoyed were no longer entertaining her when we were out or in the car. I wanted to find something that was easy to take on the go and keep her busy but not be too loud. I worked on this for a few months when I had free time and finally gifted it for Easter when she was 20 months old. 

We love the beach so I decided on an “Under the Sea” theme to include memorable aquatic creations and items, such as whales, turtles, sandcastles, treasure chests, sharks, seahorses, octopuses and more! The pages include skill building activities, like counting, color recognition, and shape sorting, pretend play with finger puppets and interactive components, like zippers and strings to push beads across and lift the flap actions.

Tools and Tips:

• Get a good pair of scissors that cut felt! These Fiskars 8 Inch Amplify Mixed Media Shears, are my favorite I use when cutting felt projects! I especially love that they come with a cover that snaps on so the blades are protected when carried in my sewing bag.
• Pack all the supplies needed for each page in their own Ziploc bag. I always had one or two baggies packed with the template or already cut shapes, felt page surface, scissors, embroidery floss, sewing needle, straight pins and any additional accents (Velcro, buttons etc). It was easy for me to grab a bag if we were headed out on a car ride or just when I was sitting on the couch and I didn’t have to have my whole box of supplies at my lap.

• Use a disappearing ink pen! Use it to help add any embroidered accents to my pages, such as the numbers on the counting octopus page or the decorative stitching on the clam tops from the Lift the Flap Clams page.

• There are different types of Velcro. In the beginning pages that had Velcro, I used whatever Velcro strips were already in my stash. It was REALLY hard to sew through them and it wasn’t until I needed more that I saw that they sell different types of Velcro backing at the store, including a softer kind that is much easier to sew with a machine or hand sew! Learn from my mistake and use the softer kind!

• Use grommets and bookrings to assemble. I love that I can mix and match pages from any future books because I used grommets and bookrings to assemble. I found this post really helpful in explaining how to use grommets for these types of projects!