During our quarantine period I designed and made this:
It is the snug little home that protects The Precious (my iPhone). I promised a tutorial and finally - here it is.
Cut a 12.5" x 3.5" piece of fabric for the outer (this is the fabric with the coquettish kittens) and a piece of wadding (I used cotton) and a piece of lining fabric slightly larger than the outer.
Make a sandwich with the wrong side of the lining fabric facing towards you, then place the wadding on top of it and finally the fabric for the outer on top of that right side towards you. Now pin it all together ready to quilt it.
Using your walking foot, quilt the sandwich using whatever design you prefer. I just did straight vertical lines lining my walking foot up with the edge of the fabric for the first row and then with the stitching for each subsequent row.
Photo of quilting.
When the quilting is finished it will look like this. You now need to trim the excess lining fabric and wadding off with your rotary cutter until it looks like this:
Neatly trimmed unit (how cute are those cats?)
Turn your piece of quilted fabric over so the liner is towards you and using a circle template (I used a ramekin - but anything circular will do) draw a semi-circle around the top inside edge of your fabric. Take care when determining which end is the top - this is especially important if you are using a directional print like I did (I found this out the hard way - to my shame there was some swearing). Then, with your scissors trim around this line.
Now it's time to add the velcro. I used sticky velcro dots. Place one on the lining fabric - the centre of the dot should be 3/4" from the top edge. The centre of the other dot should in the middle of the outer fabric 1 1/4" from the top edge.
Sew the dots in place - they will not adhere to the fabric (take it from one who found out the hard way)Now for the binding,
Cut one 3 3/4" x 1 1/4" strip of fabric. Iron both ends in a 1/4" as shown in the photo above. Then iron the strip in half and then iron the raw edges in towards the centre press mark. It should now look like the photo below.
Note the snazzy new ironing board cover! I couldn't live with the shame of the old over-loved one anymore and had to make an emergency trip to BigW to replace it.
Place the binding as indicated in the photo above and using a co-ordinating thread stitch in place. I like to put my stitches as close to the edge of the binding as possible . (It's not clear from the photos, but of course you need to stretch your quilted fabric out into a long strip for this step or your opening to the iPhone cover would be stitched shut - hopefully the photo below showing the first cover I made will clarify this)
Next, with the right side of the lining facing you fold the straight bottom edge up 5" towards the top as illustrated in the photo above.
Using a 1/4" seam stitch both sides of the cover down as illustrated above.
Next construct a binding in exactly the same way as you did earlier, but this time it should measure 17" x 1 1/4". Keep one half of the binding folded over and pin this half in place as shown in the photo and carefully sew it in place using a matching thread. Take care with the pinning - you may need to ease in some of the fullness of the binding around the curved edges. I hope that the following photos make this process all clear.
Sewing the binding down.
Your binding should now look like this on the back of the iPhone cover.
The front will look like this.
Secure the front of the binding with binding clips or pins.
Hand-stitch your binding in place.
Now all that is left to do is sew on a cute decorative button if you feel so inclined, insert your iPhone and enjoy. This pattern could easily be adapted for other devices like blackberries or even for a pencil case or sunglasses case.
I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial - don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. Also, if you do make one I'd love to see a photo of your finished product and finally if you do make one feel free to sell it - go forth and craft with impunity!Until next time,
Shontelle
