How To | iPad Case

Did I tell all of you that I got an iPad for Christmas? Lucky girl, right? I have been searching for the perfect case for it and came across a great tutorial for sewing your own laptop sleeve. You can check out the tutorial here, it is part of Skip to My Lou’s Bake, Craft & Sew Along series. I found the directions easy to follow, putting in a zipper is the hardest part; eeks, I am not good at that!

I made a couple changes to my iPad case, so it differs a little from the tutorial. The three changes I made were using quilt batting instead of fusible fleece for padding, adding pockets inside and putting a ruffle on the outside.

For the padding between my outside and inner lining I used quilt batting instead of fusible fleece. I didn’t want to have to buy anything else, “use what you got” is what I told myself. To use the quilt batting instead of the fusible fleece, I cut the batting exactly the same size as my outer and inner fabrics. When I sewed the zipper to my outer fabric I just sewed the batting as well, as if the outer layer and batting were just one piece.

For my pockets I cut the size of pockets I wanted out of coordinating inner material and sewed them onto one of the inside piece before doing any other sewing on the inside liner fabric. Because I added two pockets inside (one for my charger and one for my stylus) I took that into account when following the directions on measuring around my iPad for determining what size fabric to cut. I knew I wanted enough space in the bag to hold my charger, so I laid the charger on top of my iPad and added that into the measurement.

To add a ruffle to your bag, follow all the instructions up to the point where the tutorial tells you how to embellish one of your outside pieces. Cut a strip of fabric for your ruffle, I made mine twice the width of my bag and about 4 inches tall. Next fold over each long edge and sew along it to create a finished edge. Set your machine on a basting stitch (the biggest stitch it can make) and sew across the long way down the center of the ruffle strip. Next pull one of the threads on each side to gather the strip and make it look ruffled. Pull and gather until the width of the ruffle is the same width as the outside piece. Match the edges of the ruffle with the edges of the outside fabric piece. Pin the ruffle in place along the front outside of the fabric piece. Then sew with a regular stitch down the center of the ruffle attaching it to the outside piece, (you will be sewing over your original basting stitch and through the one layer of outside fabric and fusible fleece/batting.) Follow the rest of the directions in the tutorial.

I love the way my case turned out. It even matches a ruffle tote bag I made. I hope to have that up as a pattern soon!

If you make a computer case I would love to see it, so leave me a comment with a link so we can all check out your handiwork.