Instructions

Step One

Gather your supplies. The instructions are written for a plain inside and outside using two fabrics. I really loved the blue circuit fabric, but didn’t have enough on it’s own, so my example has the blue and black pieced outside and the computer plug fabric for the inside.

You’re going to need to start by measuring your laptop. Using a measuring tape, measure your laptop all the way around, the direction you want your flap to go. I chose to have our laptop slip in the long way. Ours is on the large size and measured 32 inches measuring around the long way and it was about 15″ across.

We don’t want to skimp on the overlap, so after you measure the distance around your laptop add about 5″ for the distance around and add about 2 1/2″ to the width of the laptop. For me, that meant I needed my pieces to be 37″ x 17.5″ It’s always better to err on the side of slightly big at this stage because it’s easy to trim the size down later to make sure the fit it snug.

Step Two

Layer your fabrics as shown with INSIDE fabric face DOWN, Support Soft Foam Stabilizer, Shield Moisture Barrier (shiny side UP), and OUTSIDE fabric face UP.

Because there are so many layers including foam and the slightly slick shield, I found it really helpful to spray the layers with a bit of temporary adhesive basting spray to keep them from shifting.

If you don’t have basting spray available, you’ll want to use a combination of pins and small binder clips to hold all the layers together.

Step Three

Stitch quilting lines approximately every 2″. This will hold all of our layers together and stabilize them. Also stitch about 1/4 inch from each edge to hold edges in place.

Check the fit by wrapping it around your laptop.

Step Four

Now we’re going to add an inside pocket to hold small computer or office items. These pockets will be perfect for thumb drives, post-it notes, pens, a small wallet, student ID card, or other incidentals.

Cut a piece of fabric as wide as your case, and TWICE as long as you’d like your pocket to be deep. For me that meant a piece, 17.5″ x 8″ because I wanted my pocket to be about 4″ deep. Keep in mind that you’ll “lose” about an inch of pocket depth from adding the velcro, so take that into account when deciding on the size of pockets. Fold and iron your fabric in half. The folded edge will be the top of our pocket. Line the raw edges up the top end of your laptop sleeve. Pin well.

Stitching from the OUTSIDE of your laptop sleeve stitch-in-the-ditch of your previous stitching lines to secure your pocket and make stitch pocket dividers. I used a pin placed cross-ways to mark where the end of my pocket was so I could stop stitching.

Trim top edge even.

Your pocket should be ready and looks like this with raw edges still exposed for now.

Step Five

Pin the scratchy part of the velcro to the INSIDE top flap over the pocket. Make sure the velcro is AT LEAST half an inch away from the edge because we still need room for the binding. Pin well. Then stitch in place.

Step Six

Wrap your sleeve around your laptop to test fit for the other half of the velcro. This should be several inches below the edge because we want there to be plenty of overlap. Stitch in place.

Step Seven

Now we’re ready to finish up and add the binding. Cut 3″ strips from your binding fabric. I chose to use the same fabric as my outside fabric for binding, except used some of the blue circuit fabric for the binding on the top flap for contrast. 3 – 3″ width of fabric strips should be plenty.

Iron your 3″ strips in half length-wise, so you end up with folded strips 1 1/2 inches wide.

Sew one of your binding strips to the OUTSIDE of what will become the TOP edge of our main laptop pocket, matching both raw edges of your binding strip to the raw edge of your laptop sleeve. Stitch with a 3/8″ seam allowance.

This should leave you with a “loose” folded edge. Wrap this around the back snugly. Pin well. Stitch in place by stitching “in-the-ditch” from the front.

Step Eight

Test the fit of your laptop sleeve and decide on exactly where you want the main laptop pocket to come to on your laptop.

Pin the sides together, leaving the top flap free. Using the same binding method, add a binding to the two long sides of your laptop sleeve while at the same time stitching the two sides together. This time you will want to use a 1/4 inch seam allowance (instead of 3/8″) on account of the case being twice as thick here and you want to leave enough width for your binding to reach around to the back.

Be sure to raw edge of the binding inside itself at the end that lines up with the bottom fold, so there are no raw edges there.

Step Nine

Now we just have the final raw edge on the top flap to add binding to. We’ll use a 3/8″ seam, stitching the binding to the OUTSIDE first. You’ll need to be sure to fold the raw edges under on BOTH ENDS of the binding this time, so we don’t leave any raw edges.