All wrapped up in Flowers.

You may remember last month that I made a smaller mouse mat for my new little netbook shown above. Despite the cost of some of these little laptops they do not come with any kind of bag or cover! However, this is a good excuse to make something too. This is about the fourth one I have made (one was a commission) and I find them really fun to do. May be not the most difficult of item to make but finding the right fabric is fun in itself.

There are some really lovely wide bindings around at the moment too such as this pink gingham one, which I did buy in France but I have seen them in fabric shops in the UK as well. 100% cotton.

I decided to take the pink bit5s of the main fabric and follow it through with the binding and the gingham lining. Fastening added too.

This is a much smaller version than I have made in the past. I have made two that were for carrying work dairies and all associated paper work too. I have one for my day job and it is amazing how much you can stuff in there during the day and look at it when you need to. Keeps it all in one place and it looks nice too.

Added one on my labels. I do not have many of these left. When they are used up then I think that it will be time to try something new.

I finished it last Wednesday but I have had trouble getting Blogger not to change the angle of my pictures! So it has been constant use since.

If you would like one of these then get in touch as it can be done via email. I send a choice of fabric pictures, you choose one, give me the measurements and off we go.

I can use a range of fastenings, button and loop, big poppers, velcro. I have added this to my Etsy shop for a while as I am going to revamp it but you can order here instead and i can send you an invoice via payapal or a cheque for UK residents.

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It is a lovely day here so some washing and gardening is in order!

Take care

xx

Laptop Cover Tutorial

I bought a dinky new laptop and despite its cost it did not come with a bag, sleeve or any way of covering it to reduce scratches etc.
So I came up with this idea, it may not be very revolutionary but it could easily be adapted to other products and I am going to make another version for my Nintendo DS at some point.

Firstly I wanted to keep everything really simple so I created a rectangular pattern I decided how far up the laptop the opening would be and how far down the flap would come. Make it a little wider that the laptop itself. See pic.

This photo shows how high up the laptop and the section above is the flap which will come almost down the the base of the case.

I then cut out two pieces of fabric. One for the outside and one for the lining. I decided to use the same for both. Lovely bit of Cath Kidston fabric.

I then used a cotton fleecy batting which was placed between the layers and pinned. You can use whatever you are used to because the aim will be to lightly quilt your cover. This will give a protective thickness and you will now how thick you want the cover to be. I would avoid using synthetic wadding. I cut the fleecy batting smaller than the outer fabric to make sewing up the seams less bulky.

By dropping the feed dog I used a complimentary thread and quilted the fabric. Due to the design on the fabric I decided to roughly quilt around the flowers. This kept the flowers untouched but the layers stitched. You could determine your quilting on the fabric chosen. You could save time by purchasing pre-quilted fabric. I stitched through all three layers
Before I got too carried away with the quilting I added two magnetic fastenings.

These are easy to use but you do need to take care when making the holes to insert the prongs on the back of the fastening.

Magnetic Fastening

Make two dots where you would like the top and bottom of the fastening to be. The back of the fastening has a split pin so make small holes either side of the position dot. (Sorry about this photo, looked much better on the camera!).

Once the prongs have been pushed through the fabric from front to back then put the washer on and push the prongs in to the middle or out wards. They are easily pushed with your fingers but a small hammer.

Here I have both halves of the fastening ready to snap together. If you are concerned about magnets and your laotop then use another form of fastening.

Across the two short edges I put a piece of silky bias binding to neaten.

Using Bias Binding

Sew the binding onto the back of the fabric. I used to do this the other way around until a friend showed me this way. Put the pins at right angles as this makes them easier to pull out.I then stitched along the edge of the binding with the machine foot next to the edge of the fabric.

Turn the fabric over and carefully bring the binding around to the front and pin again. Try to keep it as straight as possible. You may need to trim some of the fabric if the binding struggling to go over the edge. Then stitch along the edge of the binding to secure.

At this stage I added some embellishments. Due to the thickness of the quilting it is possible to sew on buttons, sequins etc and not have the thread showing on the inside. With a little bit of fiddling and pushing I also added some flower shaped brads. Again I did not push them all the way through because I did not want them to scratch the laptop.

I also carefully added some hand stitching to the petals. You can basically do whatever you want. I love hand stitching so I did go to town a little on this.

Fold your cover where you had decided to have the flap etc and again using your bias binding seal the side seams. Remember to fold over the raw ends of the binding to prevent fraying. Use plenty of pins at this stage to stop the fabric from moving too much as you stitch through all of the layers of fabric.

Voila!!

I simply wanted a cover to keep dust off etc but at the same time my laptop is protected if I put it in my work bag. It does not look like a laptop so does not get any unwanted attention. I would never have a traditional laptop bag.

You could easily adapt this, some examples could be....

*Other products
*Add a strap

*Add pockets for CD's or memory sticks either under the flap or inside the body of the cover.

*Have a zip to fasten the laptop under the flap.

This seems to be very long and I really do hope that it makes sense. The area to set this out on blogger is not very big and I had to keep scrolling up and down.

Anyway, Let me now how you get on and if you email me any of your makes I will post them on my blog with a link to you. Please let me now what you think.

I thought that I would gradually do the other tutorials in order of popularity over the coming months.

My next thought will be a giveaway for my first blogiversary on 8th September.

For now I am going to go and have a lie down!!

Take care
Bye

XX