Kindle case no.2

It's been a while since my first Kindle case, which happened to be one of the first projects completed together by my loyal sewing machine and I. Since then, the boyfriend has become my husband, and the Kindle has certainly evolved a rather lot. How time flies!

As I'm heading back to Beijing to see my family and friends in just over a week's time (I can't wait!), and my dad reads a lot, and I mean, a lot, of geeky English books (he's a bit of an academic), to the extent that 4 bookcases have become 8 in a matter of 2 years, and their home study is rapidly running out of space -- the poor desk in there must be worrying about its place and its eventual fate on a daily basis. 

So, as an attempt to avoid an overweight luggage fee for my trip, as well as to ease the pressure on the home office space situation, I've bought my dad a Kindle, and loaded it up with the books that he would like. To top it off, I wanted to make him a cover for it. I know, I'm spoiling him rotten! 

I wanted to make something a little more fancy than a pouch this time, so I found this wonderful tutorial. It was really well-illustrated, and you can't go wrong! 

Here's the complete gift:

When you open up the cover, the Kindle is in the pouch:

And it acts as a typical book-cover style holder, too, for reading on the go, thanks to these clever little corners:

Before slipping it back in your bag, there's an elastic to hold everything in place: 

I must admit, I had given this project a lot of care and attention, ensuring that everything lined up (especially with the stripes), all the corners are nice and sharp, and the ends are all tied up subtly on the wrong side. I am really happy with how it's turned out! I love how multi-functional it is, and how easy it was to put together. So if you are in the market for a Kindle cover, do pop over to Deborah's blog and you won't regret it! 

Home-made Kindle case!

So I bought a Kindle for the bf to make his daily commute less painful, and I'd make the present more complete with a home-made case. 

Now I must point out that it was him that chose the fabric (out of my very girly stash of fabric, in his defence)... but look how pretty it is!

It was an easy job and I think it took me less than a couple of hours. Here is a quick how-to:


All you need is:

• A small piece of fabric - some scrap from previous projects would be perfect. The size of this depends on which generation of kindle you have; 
• A piece of cotton/other soft fabric for lining;
• Cotton batting/wadding
• A button.

To start, measure your kindle and calculate how much fabric you need. my fabric piece was large enough so I was able to fold it on the side instead of having to sew an extra seam (I was feeling very lazy). Don't forget to incorporate the depth of the kindle too. Add a few cm's to all sides to allow the thickness of the wadding. 

Then I attached the layers together, i.e. fashion fabric, wadding and then the lining together within the seam allowance. 

Fold the joined piece over (if you were lazy like me) so the right side of the fashion fabric is together. Sew the bottom seam and the other side leaving the top seam open.Now it should look like an inside-out case.

I then finished the top edge by a normal hem. Now if you have extra length, it may be better doing a double hem so all raw edges are concealed although the top edge may be a little bulky. 

Time to turn the case right side out! try to fit your kindle in and hopefully it'll fit snugly. 

The fastener -- I used a strip of fashion fabric and folded it lengthwise so the right sides are facing. sew the edges together leaving one edge open. Turn the strip right side out and slipstitch the raw edge.

Sew one end of the finished strip to the centre of the top edge on the inside and gauge where you want the button to be on the other side of the case. Sew the button on. 

Sew the buttonhole (I did this by machine.. and not perfectly) on the strip and you're done! 

 More photos: