The Paper Bible

A few weeks ago, my friend Cassie invited me to join her for a bible study at her church. I've never done a bible study before, and I do need to make more of an effort to get out of the house, so I said sure! We're doing this one:

I showed up the first day with the bible I had received when I was taking the RCIA classes to do my first communion and confirmation last year. I had a really hard time with it though, because it (obviously being a Catholic reader's edition) was not the same translation that was used by the author in the study. Every time she'd read a passage on the dvd I'd have a hard time following along because the words in my bible were not exactly the same. It drove me crazy!

I remembered halfway through that I had a bible app on my iPhone that had a lot of different translations. I scrolled through them and sure enough - the NIV (the translation referenced in this study) was on the list. It was so much easier to find what I was looking for and follow along on it. The only problem was that I started to feel really self conscious after a while because while everyone else had their noses in a book, I was playing with my cell phone. I mean, I knew what I was doing, but I didn't want anyone else to think I was being rude, you know?

The most awkward moment came when at the end of one session, we were asked to hold our bibles in our right hands and say something about how this thing in my right hand held the teachings that would set us free... yeah. Everyone is holding a bible and I'm holding my freaking iPhone. While I'm sure Steve Jobs would have been tickled, I felt kind of weird.

Last week I was poking around in the book section of Goodwill when I noticed three bibles on a lower shelf. Closer inspection showed that one of them was the New International Version that we used in class. I pulled it off the shelf and looked at the price tag; it was marked $2.99. Not only that, but it was a purple tag, and purple tags just happened to be 50% off that day!

I went ahead and took it as a sign that I should go ahead and buy a paper bible. It was brand new and in perfect condition. No one's name had been written inside the cover, as is common in Goodwill bibles. There are no notes or highlighting on any of the pages. It's pretty much pristine.

Since the cover was just one of those flimsy covers, I picked up some fabric Saturday night and made it a cover on Sunday.

Not too shabby, eh? This is actually the second one I made - the first one, despite my careful measuring, came out too small. I could have used a slightly bigger zipper, and my stitching is a bit crooked on the ribbon, but overall, it's not bad considering I was just sort of winging it. I made a little zipper pocket on the front so I can stick a small bible highlighter in there. I was going to put a closure of some sort on it, but I forgot! Ah well.

Then, when I was done, I used some of the scraps to make this:

It's a little pincushion that is attached to my sewing machine with a piece of elastic! Now I don't have to hunt for my pincushion or worry about it getting accidentally knocked off the table while I work. This is very handy! I found the idea on Pinterest, of course. I do love that site. :)

If you look at the link, you'll see that mine is a little bit different. Mainly, the reason why is because I looked at the pin but never clicked through to see the directions. I just sorta figured it out on my own, and you guessed it, winged it! HA! I sewed a small tube, turned it inside out, tucked one end in about 1/2 an inch, stuck the elastic in, sewed it shut, stuffed it, then did the same to the other side. Easy peasy and I didn't have to hand sew any openings shut. My kind of project. :)