Make your own nice felt eeePC / netbook pouch for about $ 8 (and save $ 91 instead of buying from redmaloo)

This instructable will show you, how to make your own, very nice and good lookin' laptop or even better netbook pouch. It will store your netbook, give you a mousepad, the feeling of using something unique, nice and handmade and the goos feeling of having not payed too much. I saw this pouch for about 99 Euros, which would be about $ 130 at the time, I am writing this.

Look what you need in the next step:

Step 1: Supplies / Tools:

Here is what you need (for 10 netbooks, like the eeePC 1000H):

obligatory:

• a piece of felt in the colour you want (at least it should have 60x60 cm / 25x25 - it's a proof of concept, feel free to get a larger piece of felt or leather or the fabric you think would fit best your taste for even bigger laptops or your picnic table or anything else), I used a black one, which was a good choice for business purposes, but a bad one for the instructables because of having no contrast
• a scissor
• a ruler
• hook and loop-tape

optional:

• a set square
• a dressing marker
• fabric glue (or if you can sew, than sew)
• electric iron
• round cup for smooth edges

Comments

[tyrock]

Your design inspired me to make a 2 tone version. Customized it with my name on flap for a grand total of $15.

[spawnos3717]

Very nice design-*****. FYI, your english is excellent. I had no problems understanding you instructions. If one is to be blind to compassion, noone will understand the messenger.

[MRedu]

I liked this so much i rated it 5 stars :)

[iLLiDiaN]

 This cool I love it ! :D

[Kordan9090]

 Found this Instructable this morning, dropped by JoAnne Fabrics, and had it done by 1pm, good Instructable, nice eeePc sleeve!

[skyisblu]

Great Instructable - I am currently using it to craft my own laptop pouch, though I have to adjust for a 6-cell battery pack, and I am inserting a pocket for the adapter and other accessories. Thanks for the great step-by-step - very easy to follow!

[yngla]

Great instructable! Love the design.

[bobert610]

 thanx for the 'ible. Saved me some $$!

[OBar]

I use a portable DVD player bag for my little netbook, it works great and i have plenty of room for pens, notepads, small animals, etc.

[notuboc]

just made one for my sister in about 45 minutes, super easy and looks sharp~ thanks for the instructable!
( http://twitpic.com/a3jeg )

[knarx]

Please vote for this ible, if you think it is useful. I could use a sewing machine, as you see, I have to work with velcro and glue so far.

[nenad9]

Well, it's my very firs comment on this great site (you should be honoured, you :) I like this very much... Now I only need to get me a netbook :) Once again, great instructable!!! Greets from Serbia!

[sareffm]

it is wonderful. my boyfriend made it for me as a present ...it is unique. thank you for your instructable. keep up your work!

[jdtwelve12]

Nice Instructable. The simplest designs are often the best. In answer to your question, I think in American English we'd be more likely to say "flap" than "baffle." Technically, "baffle" is perfectly correct, but it's very rarely used that way in the US. Here the more common use of the word is as a verb: "to baffle," meaning "to confuse." It's possible that English speakers in the UK might use the word in the sense you mean, but I can't say for sure. I hope this isn't as baffling as it sounds. :)

[thejimdandy]

Thanks Knarx. I shall make a leather one for my macbook. Save me lots of $$$ and I'm sure it'll be a lot less waste compared to a store bought one. :)

[knarx]

Actually you have neraly no waste. You can use the waste of the felt to make a pouch for your iPod for example, just in the same way.

[thejimdandy]

Good idea Knarx. Thanks :)
I actually meant the waste produced by packaging etc from the expensive store bought one. Sorry for not clarifying ;
The extra felt off cuts would most likely end up under the potting mix in my pot plants (for the water hungry plants. Don't do this otherwise or you'll get root rot). Re-use before recycling. Thanks again for the great ideas Knarx

[Southpole]

hi nice work. i've been also interested in this kind of design for quite a while since it allows you to pack some additional stuff if required, like legacy documents and peripherals. do you know fuchstaschen from stuttgart? they also use this design and are larger and really nice, but even more expensive than redmaloo.

[knarx]

p.s.: that's the spirit you can use the pouch very tight, when you only carry the netbook with you, but it is expendable, so you can carry things with you in the pouch.

[knarx]

Fuchstaschen? Never heard of them. But I am interested now and will google it. Stuttgart is not so far from my original hometown.

[i make shooting things]

i got one with my EEEpc :P

[knarx]

Me too, but - for example - samsung delivers only a bad, thin and ugly sleeve with their netbooks. Mine from the eeePC is quite nice but I always was interested in this style.

[vistal]

I would never run a laptop inside that case it already gets hot .You may burn it up. Also i wouldn't use magnets use Velcro.

[knarx]

You just unfold it to use the netbook.

[Timofly]

i made one from my dad's old suit. it was nice materials, but i made it into a zipper laptop protector which stays attached to the laptop even when in use=)

[thejrb]

May be trying something similar to this... I've got an msi wind. It's similar to the eee put with a usable keyboard. ;)

[cokebottle tuque]

I have heard that MSI swapped the p and b keys on the wind, can you confirm this? ;)

[thejrb]

you mean the places of them? no they're in the right spot.

[tabi]

TNX, I saw the original done in grey felt and I thought it could be done on leather or neoprene, so I was racking my brain to get the pattern out of a picture... so REALLY THANK YOU!!!! on the neoprene thing, I have an old wetsuit lying around so that could look cool... recycling and all thatt, you know ;)

[mweston]

A cool concept to try with this would be to use magnets and wrap the edges of the felt around small neodymium (or similar strength) magnets. With this you could just flip the case together and it would stick. I would not trust this to hold very tightly though, so you'd have to be careful. Another thing to watch out for is sensitive components, but if you did this with the magnets on the screen-top side you should be fine. Anyway, cool design - simple and sleek

[eygen]

The only magnets strong enough to hold that together are also magnets that would damage your notebook, so I don't think that's an option. Good idea though.

[mweston]

The commets below covered that, it should generally be safe, but in my opinion it is good to be on the safe side of things

[Eirinn]

As nice as the idea is i'd be very weary to have neodymium magnets that close to a laptop ;)

[mweston]

very few components are actually affected by magnetism, of you have an HDD, keep big magnets away though. I'm not going into specifics, but those magnets loose power exponentially as distance increases - so a small magnet that is the thickness of the netbook away from the HDD will do no harm. If you have an SSD then there is virtually nothing to worry about.

[Eirinn]

There's next to no harm if it's a HDD either, those things are shielded nowadays and you really have to try cram a magnet inside of it or throw it into a small EM field. Maybe it's just an old habit to keep magnets away from computers i'm not sure.

[mweston]

I think its more of a better safe than sorry thing, because in most cases I would try to keep big magnets away from a HDD

[Eirinn]

Hmm i guess it might be the same thing in my case - i wouldn't feel too safe with a magnet close to my laptop - must be one of those "the sky might fall down things" that are baseless, but it just feels nice to feel "safe".

[hcold]

Well, the monitor isn't a CRT, and the memory isn't magnetic if it's a solidstate, so all should be safe unless I'm overlooking something vitally important.

[eygen]

That's a great idea! For the next laptop I'm getting (a lot bigger than the one I have now, so I can't use the same bag), I'll make this instead. Nice design too :D

[marcelor]

I've been thinking about this very same design for quite sometime but I was not able to find suitable felt. Anyone have a source for high quality felt in the US? All I ever seen around here is low quality industrial packing stuff, nothing like one can get, say, in Germany.