You can make a quilted book cover in 1-2 hours depending on how much time you spend on the quilting part so it’s a great quick-finish project and an achievable beginner quilting project too.
The first thing you need to do is take a soft flexible measuring tape and measure your book around the spine from the edge of the front cover to the edge of the back cover.
Then use your tape measure to measure the height of the book along with the front cover vertically. This is your height.
If you want to keep things super simple you can of course cut one piece of fabric for your outer cover and just quilt it down to your batting.
The flaps are the bits on the side that keep your book, journal, or notebook inside your cover sometimes called a book sleeve.
Take the two pieces you cut as described and fold them in half from wrong sides to wrong sides. Place the raw edge of that folded piece of fabric along the side edges of each end of your journal cover.