I have been sewing for many years, but my children have had very little interest in what I do. They think it's great that I have something I love to do and respect what I do, but that's about it. So when my daughter asked me to make a laptop sleeve for her, I was so excited. Hold on, it is coming right up!
There are various sizes in laptops, so I can't give exact measurements to suit everyone in this tutorial. Please measure your laptop to come up with numbers before you cut the necessary pieces; use this tutorial as a guide. Also, this sleeve is to protect the laptop from scratches and minor spills, but not from drops. Lastly, I used 1/2" seam in most places except for the sewing zipper.
You Will Need:
- Fabric for front and back - I wanted a pieced look but you can make this from a solid piece of fabric.
- Batting
- Thin muslin
- Lining fabric
- 18" zipper - purchase a zipper 2" longer than your fabric panel width
- Thread
How to
1. Measure your laptop. My laptop was 10" high x 14" wide x 7/8" thick. Considering the seam allowance, enough room to store the laptop in and pull it out with ease, I wanted the finished pieced fabric to be 12" x 16". So basically I added 2" to the original height and the width. It is pretty easy to do this when you choose to do it with non pieced fabric. If you decided to do a pieced look, make sure that your pieced panels are large enough.
2. As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, my measurements are just a guide to give you an idea. I cut 2 pieces of 12" x 10" for the larger panel and 2 pieces of 12" x 4" for the smaller panel from large floral print fabric. I wanted to use various scraps to run through in between the large and the small panels. I cut them 4" wide and randomly pieced and trimmed them to be 12" long.
3. Piece the large panel, pieced strip and small panel together. Press with iron.
4. Cut 2 pieces of thin muslin and batting larger than your finished piece and lay them flat on the table. Layer them with the pieced panel to get ready to machine quilt. I used pins to secure them together. Make another panel.
5. I set the stitch setting on my
Sashiko machine before I started quilting. Stitch length to 2 and stitch spacing to 3. This is a great feature to achieve the exact look you are going for. I used smaller stitch setting for my
Halloween Trick or Treat Bag project.
I wanted different quilt designs on the front and back to have fun with the Sashiko machine (who said it has to be exactly the same! haha) and here are the results.
6. Trim off the excess. I wanted slightly rounded corners on the top, so I used random objects I found in my sewing room, traced them (mine are 2" in diameter) and trimmed them.
7. Find the center of the top seam of the panel and on the zipper. Pin the right side of the zipper to the right side of the panel. Switch the walking foot to zipper foot and sew slowly and carefully, especially the rounded corner. Do the same with other panel. There are some great tutorials on how to attach zippers on Youtube if you are unsure how to do this process.
8. Put together the panels right sides together and sew the sides and the bottom. Make sure to leave the zipper open during this process, otherwise you won't be able to turn the fabric inside out! Trim the bottom corners for a clean finish.
9. Sew the liner. I cut 2 pieces of 12" x 16". I started to sew about 2" from the top seam and ended 2" before the top. You will need that opening to fold the sides to fit and stitch to the zipper and create the rounded corners. Press the seam with an iron for a clean finish and press the top seam slightly more the 1/2" except the corners.
10. Put together the quilted panel and the liner and hand stitch the liner to the zipper. I carefully created the round corner as I was stitching. There are other methods to do this, but I just did what I was comfortable with.
It is time for a test drive. I inserted my daughter's laptop and it was a perfect fit!
This tutorial could apply to other devices such as iPads and Kindles. Isn't it fun to think about how you can have your very own personalized laptop sleeve? I hope you enjoyed my tutorial!
