Sweet Easy Sleeve for your Tablet

My 75 year old father has an iPad. Okay, if the senior citizens are getting tablet computers, you know that they're going to be a fixture in our lives for a while.  

But suppose you jumped on the tablet bandwagon, but you don't have an iPad.  Maybe you have a Xoom.  Or a Kindle.  Or something in between, like my 7" Galaxy Tab.  Its hard to find cases for these.  You can't walk into an Apple store or a Brookstone and pick up a accessories for them.

Sure you can get a case for your tablet... from the manufacturer.  And it comes in any color you want, as long as you want black.  So where are the cool accessories for you?

Well, gentle reader, the cool stuff is as close as your sewing room.  Because I am going to help you make your own sweet gadget sleeve, no matter what kind of gadget you have.  

This sleeve features ~

• cushy felt lining for extra protection
• exterior patch pocket for earbuds, sync cable, extra memory, etc
• button closure
• made from recycled / re-purposed materials!

Time to complete ~  About an hour

Materials required ~

• rear quarter panel of a pair of jeans
• two pieces of felt (I used eco-fi brand)
• decorative button
• elastic hair tie
• newspaper

Also ~

• scissors
• marking pen (optional)
• sewing machine (optional, you can also hand sew, or use fabric glue on the major seams)
• iron (also optional, but recommended)

Lets get started!

Step 1 Measure Twice, Cut Once

In this step, we make a custom pattern for our device.

1. Get a single sheet of newspaper and fold it.  I used a Wall Street Journal, but you don't have to be as classy as I am.  Its also fun to make patterns from the Sunday Funnies and the classifieds.
2. Put your device so that it lines up with the fold and the edge (see image 1).  Fold up the edge to measure the thickness of your device.  Let about 3/8" extra hang over the top of your gadget.  This is your seam allowance.
3. Draw a line around your gadget.  Draw another line all around that is the same width as the width of your fold (height, plus seam allowance)
4. Cut along the outside line and open up the paper at the fold.  Ta da!  A pattern!

Recap for people who like math:

Cut a rectangle out of a piece of newspaper.  
The rectangle's length should be equal to 2 * (gadget_length + 2* (gadget_height+3/8)).  
Its width should be  gadget_width + 2* (gadget_height+3/8).

For example, my gadget_length is 7.5, gadget_height is .5, and gadget_width is 4.75.   So my pattern is 18.5" x 6.5"

2 * (7.5 + 2* (.5+.375)) = 18.5"
4.75 + 2* (.5+.375) = 6.5"

Comments

[jimmytvf]

i've just made the same!!!! i have to change the buttons, are broken down and i also put a strap when i go everywhere, but i have to put some felt inside, raw denim is starting to scratching my screen

[avatarsyd]

what if elastic wears out?
should we switch it?

[knitpixie]

So clever! I love it! Gotta love all the things you can do with a pair of jeans!