Kindle Cover

I did this tutorial for Julie, of the Intrepid Thread, She has the most beautiful fabrics, and let me choose a set to make this kindle cover. I am so happy with it, and I hope someone may use this tutorial and make their own! If you do, I would love to see it!
Kindle tutorial for Julie 


We are going to make a neat kindle cover. When I acquired a kindle, I looked at covers. I am a somewhat forgetful soul at times, and the kindle comes with an essential lead, which is required to plug it in and recharge, and may also be useful for loading books onto it. Most covers do not have a useful storage section designed for this lead, and I could see, there was a strong likelihood of losing said lead, and so I need a safe, secure storage for it. Preferably with the kindle itself, so that I do not look at it later and say,
 ‘What the Dickens is that for?’

So for security, I need a zippy pocket. Hold on there a moment, will the zip scratch my kindle? Can’t have that, I will put a flap over the zip.









This cover took me about 3 hours to make, and that was with stopping for photos all the time - it took far, far longer to write the tutorial!
I am an impatient soul, and tend to ‘wing’ it a lot when I sew, but I have tried to make this comprehensive, but sometimes that is less than clear, so
Please read all instructions very carefully, and if you have any questions, contact me directly!



Materials needed,
Outer skin- 12” x 7.5”
Lining-12” x 7.5”
Pocket-10” x 7.5”
Pocket flap 5” x 7.5”
Window 5” x 7.5”, twice. Once in interfacing
 Binding, approx. 48” x 2.5”- a little longer makes life simpler!
Tab 1 ¾ “ x 4” twice- fabric and once in interfacing
Zip, at least 6” long- you can shorten longer zips, but it is very hard to stretch one!
Wadding, I used an iron on wadding, designed for bags.
Button, or magnetic closure, or press stud, if preferred.
Cereal packet- for the cardboard to do your template!

Now, I only have the basic Kindle, and the dimensions are a little different if you have one of the superior models, so do check your dimensions, do not just blithely follow mine, and end up with a giveaway for A.N Other, rather than your own lovely kindle cover!

I made a cardboard template for my kindle, and a paper pattern for the ‘window’ . I also kept my kindle handy, as I could use it to check my details as I went along.
Once these are done, you can get on with the fun bits!



                                                             

First, cut your fabric to size,


With this lovely ‘Down Under’ fabric, from Julie it would have been good to put my animals on the outside, but as the background is white it would get dirty quickly, so I chose to use a darker fabric for that, and the animals as a cute secret for the inside.




Method

Tab


I am afraid I generally make my tabs too long!  So please make yours the length that suits you best!
Cut a template, for the size and shape you want,  And layer the interfacing on the wrong side of one side of the tab- see the image above, Draw round the template and stitch just inside this line.

Now use your male half of the magnetic fastener, and using the washer as a guide, mark the buttonhole places, and make your tiny buttonholes again.

you will see, I have marked the seam allowance round the outside of the tab stitching here,   as a Cutting Guide.

Please make sure you really make those tabs firm with a plier!


As you can see. I put an extra piece of interfacing in for reinforcement.
Then layer up your tab, right sides together, and stitch round on the sewing line again.   You will probably need to use your Zipper foot for this!



Trim neatly, on the cutting line







And make some tiny cuts up to but not through, the stitches – see next image!







This lets you turn it inside out, and get a reasonable curve, rather than something that goes pointy on you!

Use the blunt end of your stitch ripper (the handle!) to really smooth out those curves.



If you prefer a button  and buttonhole, miss out your magnet, and make a buttonhole the right size, after turning tab right sides out!

Outer cover


Take your outer fabric, and your wadding, pin and quilt as preferred,



Now you need to plan your magnet, if you are using one.
Don’t do as I did, and place it too close to the edge, that just makes the binding difficult to sew on, later. Position this at the centre of one short end of the outer, about 1 ¼” in from the edge.

Magnetic fastenings come in 4 parts, 2 washers, and a male and a female part.
Use the washer to mark where the washer needs to be attached, and make tiny little buttonholes, with some interfacing behind for added strength. Pierce the buttonholes, put the female in position, washer on the inside, and fold over the flaps. Use a pliers to secure firmly.


If you are using a button, that can be sewn on right at the end.


Now place tab in position, at the centre of the opposite short side of the outer, you will have half the magnetic fastener at each end. Use your logic, when it folds in half, and you wrap the tab round, the magnetic fasteners should meet!






Window
Use your template/ pattern to mark the corners of the window on your fabric.


please note- there is a wider strip on one side, than the other! This is essential!

These points are going to be your CUTTING guide.
Draw a sewing guide ¼” outside these.

See image below





  Now stitch along the sewing line of each piece separately, for the ‘notch’ at the bottom. This is for added strength, and to reduce the likelihood of stretching in use.


Now layer it up, fabric right sides together, and a piece of interfacing underneath. . Sew along your sewing guide lines of the window only.

At this point, I like to check my window actually fits.

Place your window over your kindle, and trace the outline of the text page with your nail, you will feel it quite easily through the fabric. Adjust now if necessary!
Then you can cut the actual hole! Use those corner marks to assist. You now have a couple of really good size scraps for another project!

Clip into the corners, without cutting the stitches at all, and turn it right sides out.Straight through the window. Feels odd, but it works!




Press firmly.
Now the tricky bits! You see where that pencil line is?


 Carefully cut that out.


And clip into the corners as before..,


  ready for some fiddly ironing?  You need to fold your fabric inside, along those reinforcing seams, and press really firmly. Starch it if possible!

 Topstitch 1/8” from the edges.

Do the same along the long narrow edge, fold in ¼ “and topstitch 1/8” from the edge. Also topstitch round your window, 1/8” from the fold.  Leave your wider margin raw. That will be fine- promise!
Whew! It’s all easy from here…

Pocket and lining
The trickiest bit of this is putting the zip on the back! But, that is not too hard, with what you have already done. Here you go,

Mark your slot, 5“ x ¼ “

Put the pocket piece under your lining piece, right sides together, and sew along the outline of your slot.

Now mark in your slot, as shown in the next photo,


And cut along these lines, careful not to cut through your stitches, but snipping neatly into the corners.
and turn right through your slot



and press well, to give nice crisp edges to your slot.


You now need to lay your zip, symmetrically behind the slot
This is fine, they will be chopped off later, but get your zip pull inside the slot- or how will you open it?

  pin so it will be stable,  ( excuse the fuzzy photo!)

and sew right round your zip, using the zipper foot. You can see the zip ends sticking out here. That is fine!




Fold the pocket up at the back.

 and press.








Pocket flap
Take your pocket flap piece, fold in half, right sides out to give apiece 2 ½” x 7 ½ “.


As you can see- I am of the ‘make it up as you go along, and measure later’ school..


Pin in place, and secure by sewing inside the seam allowance, so these stitches will hide when it is finished. You now have a hidden zip pocket.

At this point you may attach your window also- I know I did it earlier, but it made it slightly unwieldy, so I recommend you do it at this point, instead! Sorry!
The wider, raw edge of the window is at the right hand end of your lining. Check the fit now, as it is easier to adjust now than later. It should be very snug!


Assemble your layers
On your work table, make your sandwich.
place your outer, Right side down. Wadding is up!
Then lay your lining, on this, right side up. If your fabric on your outer is directional, ensure this is doing what you want it to, very frustrating to discover later, that it is upside down! Pin carefully, but sparingly, and stitch right round, @ 1/8” from the edge.

Trim all sides neatly! This will take off your excess zipper ends at the same time.
You will notice I have not left an ‘access hatch’ for the right hand side page turners. This is because the fabric is soft enough that it is not needed. You will be fine like this!






Binding
The total distance round this is 39”. I recommend you make a binding strip at least 48” long! This gives you a little playing room for getting it really neat. If you are an expert, by all means use a piece that is just long enough and no more, but you have been warned!

Bind in your favourite style,or follow me!

Sew strips together to get a long enough overall length,
Fold your binding strip lengthwise, and press. Starching really helps here, too.
Starting in the centre of one side and leaving a reasonable tail, match the raw edges of your kindle cover, and of the binding together, and stitch ¼” from the edge. Stop ¼” from the corner, and secure.
Do that tricksy thing where you fold the long tail up at 90 from the kindle, and then back down to match your new side,









When you get within 3” - 4” of where you started, you need to stop, fasten off and sort out your meeting point.
I prefer not to sew the two ends together. Take one raw end, open it out,



 and turn under ½”, and press 
 fold back together,

 and press again.

 Now, open it out, along the edge of the cover, and sew it in place, open like this

 Trim your other end, so there is about ¾” – 1” overlap, line up accurately, and sew this end down.  fold back over, and sew down securely.  You can catch stitch this fold later if you feel it is needed.













Now fold your binding out from  the kindle cover, and press flat.


 now fold the binding over the raw edges, and pin in place.


Do all the sides, and then come back and play with your corners. You can get a really neat mitre with a little care!

Flatten down the corner, opening it out, as above,

again- sorry about the photo quality!


 and then use your stitch ripper, to get a good fold




And pin this securely.
You may now sew it down, either by hand, or with your machine






Voila!

making progress

At the cost of housework, other things have been getting some attention round here. Who wants to do housework anyway?

So some weeding and planting, two golden courgette plants are now planning to reduce the weeding just here.





while this Graham Thomas rose has decided to play nicely.













And this yellow flag is giving it's share of joy

 near to this allium. I love those clean stars on the heads.


















and, I promised a photo of this 'multiblue' clematis, yesterday


but, just to demonstrate that there is work aplenty left, here is a fine crop of stinging nettles, which grace my front garden!

That is right- they are in the front... Nuff said.





 And the rest of the  day? Tote number two is taking shape. Slowly!







this is one side - finishing touches still to be sorted..

 The other side

and straps..














I am now sorting linings. will I be done tonight? I hope so, but am not confident.
it looks quite purple to me in the photos, butIpromise you, it is a bright blue!

I  am trying to link up to the lovely Lucy. Anyone who doesn't know Lucy- go see her! She is lovely, and great fun.She has asked that instead of a name,we put in either a favourite font, or a letter. So, I have done that!

 Someone reminded me, it is only 5 weeks until the retreat. And I have swaps to make!

Foolishly or otherwise, I have volunteered myself for totes!
I think a tote will be useful, as there may well be bits and pieces to be taken to and from the venue- they are promising a 'quilt market' in the evening of the Saturday, and if I manage to make any sneaky purchases, a tote would be a help. So, possibly, other folk may also appreciate a tote.

So, totes it is.

I have been making tote number one. Shades of yellow, with some free embroidery leaves and stems on the one side, modelled here by my long suffering son, he is good to his Mum....

and on the other side, double aster from Quilters cache, done in shades of yellow. Now, I made a mistake on this one as I started it. So it is all made in reverse, as it were. This is the laevo version- as opposed to the  dextro version. yes, I am just trying to dress it up nicely... I got it wrong, okay? and didn't want to get out the seam ripper... so that is that!

A couple of pockets, but I forgot the D ring.... I shall maybe have to forget the D ring in the others too...

One down, two to go!

Sorry for the quality of the pictures, but daylight has gone, and they are not the best. Ah well. 

And for the daughters, again, some garden shots. And I will let you look too if you like!

Here is 'Penny Lane', my first rose this summer ( summer? what summer-  Oh that three days of warmth and sunshine? THAT summer!)

When the sun shines, she smells heavenly. When it is cold and damp. she smells of nothing. Come back summer, you didn't spend long enough here!

 This is the first year this clematis has really shown it's mettle, yes we have had a few flowers the past couple of years, but this year- we are showing our stuff! This one is growing up the same trellis as Penny Lane, and may intertwine with her in years to come, I hope.


















 and quietly lurking is this beauty.


A rich purple specimen is just coming out, too but I will have to wait for daylight to take the next photograph.








 These poppies are doing their bit for the garden. I love their frilly edges.

see little one- the cocoa shell mulch is down!

and alliums are self propagating behind the garden geraniums here.

So the garden is progressing!

I just need a little more weeding...

Oversized tote...

  

Ok, so it is not my usual style. But there is purple- I love purple- and it looked like it had potential. And by the time it is chopped around a little it will not be quite so... well, it will not be quite SO.
And it will make a great tote!



 When we did that super Mouthy stitches swap back... when??   I loved my tote, and I use it a lot, but I did think, perhaps just slightly larger would have been good.

So, getting involved in another swap, I just couldn't leave well enough alone, could I? Well, could you? No, I thought not!

So, I upped the size a little! Only a little. And put together a new tote.
And just when I had the front sorted, that naughty little think gremlin came along, and said in my ear, ' you could put a magnetic catch pocket just there you know. It would work really well , and almost hide.'  And who doesn't like an extra pocket on the front?

And a neat little magnetic catch pocket appeared. And went in, just like it was meant to.

 and on the inside, a patch pocket is always useful, isn't it?



The plainer purple against those hot chevrons looks Ok too, methinks!





and I need a zippy pocket too, there is always something needing to be secure...

So there is a front, yes that fabric has toned down nicely, with the purple linen, and the other pieces in there, I think it is quite pretty really! and the back, much plainer, fro the days when one doesn't wish to be so flash!

Oh but it is going travelling... I cannot keep it. Now I am sad... I love this one- even if it ended up a tad larger than intended... I sort of forgot- adding that pocket added to the length, by a little over an inch, and adding an extra inch on each side, means the bag is 4" bigger in circumference... So it is definitely an OVERSIZE tote!

next question... will my swap partner like it...Or is it too big! I shall post it and we shall see!

June bees

Ok, we are now well into June. And bee blocks to be made. When do you sew best? and do you have sewing clothes that work better than others?

It seems I sew best in nightwear. Perhaps the relaxed feel is what gets me going? Do not fret, Fat Quarterly Retreat folk- I will get dressed for that!

Anyway, I was up a tad early this morning. For reasons best not discussed here. And I had blocks to do. So I did one. It went really smoothly, and was a dream to put together. About an hour after I got up, I was back to bed, and off to the land of Nod.

This block is for the lovely Lynz , who wanted an improv log cabin style block. She provided a set of solids, and asked us to put in a little bit of our own, that would go with her solids.
To tell the truth, this block slightly frightened me. Yes, I know you do not get much more straightforward than a log cabin, but I find they do not always behave for me. I think this one behaved quite nicely, thank you!

This is now packed up, ready to post, Just hasn't quite made it to the PO yet!








Not quite the same story with the Stash bee block!  We had been asked to do this monster!

Nataki wants blocks which are either colour graded, or same colour blocks. Blue green yellow was one of the preferred options, with Kona black as the background. This one took me about 5 1/2 hours to do. No, it was not difficult, just fiddly and time consuming.
The instructions include a template, to cut the 45 degree  sections. I am afraid I took a shortcut on that. I have a 45/ 90 creative grids rule, and I put the PDF template on my computer screen checked the inch square was an inch ( it wasn't, I had to shrink it a bit) and marked the alignment on my rule with a sharpie.  I was then able to just use my rules and cut to size without the template. It ends up 17 1/2 " square.

It is done now, and if I do not do another one, it will be soon enough!

Effective though, now it is done!


And again, a small garden update, my favourite flower, I think,

This lovely lady opened yesterday, and makes me smile whenever I look out to see her. 

June already!

 Well, May was a busy month! I had decided to participate in a basket swap, and was lucky enough to get May as my partner. She is a quirky fun sweet lady, and in the time I have 'known' her, I have got rather fond of her. Now, we also were in an apron swap, and she got rather a 'thing' about skulls. So, I do not know, if you can quite see the quilting on that top basket? I put skulls round it, as a bit of an in-joke. I was trying diversionary tactics too, that she was not my partner, by starting the basket making, with orange. And then progressing to yellow and red. But she is a clever cookie! and saw right through my tactics, She knew these were for her!

So I added a couple of sillies, and posted them off! Happy baskets May!

 Now, I am also mad enough to have joined the name tag swap for FQR, and have designed and made this tag. I know my partner had a stated preference for a lanyard, so that is what I have produced, and I trust the 3D flower will be enjoyed. It was posted on Wednesday, so, if the Post Office is co-operating, she should have received it by now. I hope to hear soon.

 In hipbees, lovely Sarah gave us a different challenge. She sent fabric, and we could do any block we wished! The red and cream is lovely, and it produces a really lovely block, almost whatever you want to make! Sarah has some really pretty blocks from the whole group.





And, as a by product, it inspired me to use some fabrics which I had already 'bundled', to make 3 D blocks and put together a quilt top. I have started sashing- but life keeps getting in the way!











I occasionally go to a new little local craft group.  The group is mainly papercrafting, but 'anything goes' , so knitters, sewing ladies and all sorts attend. The skill levels are very varied, and everyone is made welcome.
This has started up in Lowton, and they asked me to do a tutorial for these silly little embellishments that I often use on cards- some of you will recognise these. 

 I tend to think they are so simple, I can produce a card in 5 or 10 minutes, with these, but it does take longer to explain than to do, and an hour or so on, about 5 or 6 folk had put cards together, with these pretty little nothings on. Very effective.  I hope they will do them again, without my beady eye on them!

May's Stash Bee block was asterisks, quick and easy, I look forward to seeing what Bri does with them.

and then, there were the round the world blocks too. I can see now, why folk do this round up! It really focuses on what you have achieved, and lets you see past the bits left wanting, and so encourages you to go forward!

And, linked with Lily's quilts, for Fresh Sewing Day!