Laptop Case Made With An Old Towel

Can't you tell by looking at it that it has a towel in it?  Tricky, tricky!

You see, I had this laptop that needed a tote of some sort.  Nothing fancy, just something to keep it sort-of safe and contained in my house-o-crazy.

I don't anticipate leaving the house with it much.  Er...ever.  But still, the tote needed to be strong and cushion-y and that's where the towel came in.  Basically I didn't have any batting so I took a regular old towel (sorry little duckies) and used it instead.

I almost did a tutorial for this bag but it was late and I apparently have a penchant for fabrics that are migraine-inducing in photo-tutorial form.  Really you should thank me though for NOT sharing my first-time-laptop-bag-making-methods. I got to sewing and made so many mistakes and miscalculations that the instructions would have read something like...."Oh wait, rip that out." and "Ooops, this is the part where I realized I forgot that one thing six steps back. Haha. Silly me.  Don't do that."

Do you know what I love about a finished sewing project?  Nobody knows what it took you to get there!  

In the spirit of bearing all my dirty DIY secrets, I should probably also mention I didn't really like this fabric from my stash when I started sewing.  Don't get me wrong, I liked the fabric in theory -- big pattern, bright color -- but it didn't give me warm fuzzy feelings.  Too tropically orange?  I had snagged it for pennies at a church bizarre to raise money for Haitian orphans (cool, huh?) and I could never totally get that "vintage" smell out which made it unsuitable for clothing, but great for this sort of thing.  I needed something to help me get over that something about it.  And that, my friends, is where the aqua bias tape "ribbon" came in.

Hello to my new favorite color combo.

I do feel bad that there is no tutorial and want to share a few of the methods that worked and maybe a couple of ways you can learn from my mistakes.

1) It worked well to start with the towel when cutting out the pieces.  I pinned it around the laptop (not too snug) and used 1/2 inch seam allowances.

2) Whatever you do, don't try to rip your towel along the crosswise grain instead of cutting it -- towels rip along the lengthwise grain (from top to bottom, not side to side).  Not that I was silly enough to try to rip my towel...

3) Whatever you do, don't try to rip an old fabric instead of cutting it.  Old fabrics rip any which way they darn well please! (Yes, yes, I tried to rip that too.)

4) I made the bag about 2.5 inches taller than the laptop but otherwise snug because I knew the towel would make the bag floppy.  You might want to look at your power cord and take it's size into account.

5) A coordinating fabric for the lining would be super cute.  I'm thinking you could also use fleece to line the bag instead of a towel if you have an old fleece blanket lying around.

6) A pocket on the outside would be nice too.  You should do that.

7) Use an 80/12 needle or larger so that your's doesn't break.

8) To make the handles thicker and stronger, take the width you want, quadruple it, and add the seam allowance.  Mine were about an inch wide, so I cut a piece 5 inches wide.  Press the outsides edges into the middle of the strap and top stitch to finish.

9)  If you want to be able to carry the bag on your shoulder, make the straps longer than mine.

10)  I can't think of  a #10, but who makes a list with only 9 points?

Have a good day ya'll!  Over and out.