How to Make a Reversible Laptop Sleeve

When my husband was getting ready to give his old laptop to his mother, I thought "You can't just give it to her naked. It needs some kind of protective sleeve." But I didn't want something boring, or worse - UGLY! I had seen the Monster Laptop Sleeve and thought to myself that it didn't look to me like $65 worth of fabric and sewing.

I'm genetically predisposed to look at things and figure out how to make them myself for less, so of course I looked at this and said "I can do this!" Except that the more I looked at it, the more I realized that I didn't just want something fun, I wanted it to be reversible. Twice the fun!

I'm not good at sewing, and I'm terrible at visualizing things in three dimensions, so making it reversible took a lot of trial and error to get that part right. I did two - one for me and one for my mother-in-law. The one for me was my beta, and I ended up re-doing it at least twice. I took pictures of my mother-in-law's, once I was sure I'd gotten the kinks out of my process.

Step 1 Materials

You'll need:

Appx. 1/2 yard each of 2 different kinds of fabric
Thread
Embellishments (I used felt for the eyes, but you can use anything)
Pins

The fabric can be anything. If you'd like a little more protection you might use neoprene, and a great source of neoprene is old mouse pads. Sew a few together and use them as one of your pieces of fabric.

It's best to use fabric that you can use sideways. Bolts of cloth come in two widths - 45" and 60"., so you can make your long cut along the width of the fabric. If your fabric is stretchy, you won't be able to use it sideways and you'll need closer to a yard.

Let the fabric suggest the decorations! Fabric paint, buttons, feathers, bits of leather, other pieces of fabric - anything you can sew, snap or glue to a piece of fabric will probably work.

Comments

[Holly E.]

I wasn't sure about doing this, until I saw the reversed sides red monster. I love him! I want to take him home and feed him cookies! Great job. Too bad I let my dad borrow my old labtop, this would have been perfect for me.

[birdiebee]

where did you bought your cloth? thanks :)

[chapx]

Btw Chicken Buddha I've emailed you. Have you received it? My notebook arrives tmr and I'm going to make another this weekend so for those who intend to try this out, do feel free to ask me to take more specific pictures if needed. (:

[chapx]

Your additional picture and information does make quite a difference. Thanks so much. I've tried it using tissue by stapling them together. I'll definitely be doing it and taking pictures of how I did it once I find the furry materials. I hope it'll be soon because I can't seem to find that furry cloth in Spotlight. The great thing about reversibles is that the thread are all hidden (especially the hand stitches when doing handphone pouches where they're way too small for sewing machine use).

[chapx]

Hello, first of all, thanks for posting this up! This is the exact laptop sleeve my friend's been looking for, in fact she ordered it through a spree but they refunded her money ( I suppose due to low orders).

I'm very confused how you go from step 5 to 6. And, does step 4 mean sewing the 3 sides from the "flap" together or only 1side?

I've made reversible handphone/cell pouches and got so addicted doing it so I guess I'm a fan of reversibles. =D

[Chicken Buddha]

I added another picture because I had such a horribly hard time describing this part of the process. In step 4 you're going to have two long rectangles of fabric, and you're just supposed to sew them together at the short edges with the right sides facing. You'll now have 1 long rectangle made of 2 layers of fabric. In step 5, I folded the 2 layers of fabric in toward the center (imagine making a puppet mouth). Then sewed the open sides together (with the exception of the hole I left to pull it right side out). Let me know if this still isn't clear. I went ahead and made you a collaborator so that as you make your project, if you come up with a genius way of describing this, you can just edit it. Thanks for your comments!

[Myself]

How's the laptop's operating temperature, while swaddled in a layer of thermal insulation? I was under the impression that most modern laptops ran on the edge of overheating anyway.

[Chicken Buddha]

The laptop sleeve's really only good for use when the laptop is off (not asleep). Any laptop in a sleeve will eventually overheat.

[Mitten]

It looks great except that green fabric looks like the kind used for toilet seat covers...