A Hebrew Alphabet Quiet Book

Probably some time in 2011 or so I got it in my head that it would be fun to make Brett a quiet book for the Hebrew Alphabet and started working out the ideas for it. Around 2014 or so I actually started buying materials for it but didn’t make much progress on the actual sewing of it. Earlier this year I decided I was tired of moving all the supplies around and I was just going to actually do it. So I did.

A few things held me back. First, looking at a lot of quiet books online made me think they all had to be hand sewn with embroidery floss. And while I love to sew, I much prefer the machine. So I had to get over that misconception. Then it still took me a bit to realize that I could use fabric paint for some of the details instead of sewing them. So it was my own misconceptions that held me back. But no more!

The Hebrew alphabet only has 22 letters. So it’s a bit simpler to do than the English alphabet in some respects. But each letter in the Hebrew alphabet has a concept associated with it, and I wanted the pages to represent that concept and not just words that start with those letters. So that made designing the pages a bit trickier. However, it turned out awesome!

When looking at the book and pages remember that Hebrew reads right to left, not left to right.

We titled it “Book for the Sabbath.” I used a freezer paper stencil and fabric paint for the title. I love how it turned out.

Each page represents the concept for the letter. And each page is interactive in some way. We also made sure each member of our family is represented with the animals (specifically the penguin, elephant, flamingo, zebra, lion, and bear for each of us individually and the turtle for our whole family), which is a fun bonus.

The book is dedicated to our four children. I used freezer paper stencil and fabric paint to write their Hebrew nicknames in the front cover.

There’s a “cheat sheet” at the back to help point out what concept each letter represents in case the page doesn’t make it obvious. Printable fabric came in very handy.

And the whole BIG thing ties closed.

The kids love playing with it and so far have been great at sharing it. We love that Izri likes to sing what he knows of the Hebrew alphabet song every time he plays with it.

However, I think my next quiet books will have much fewer pages.