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Sunday, March 24, 2013

A new kindle cover...

I've been incredibly drawn to a wintery cool colour palette in the last few weeks. It started when I bought a couple of quarter metres of fabric for different projects in the fabric shop on Mother's day - a minty aqua green and a deep grape purple, both with tiny dots in white - and when I stacked them on top of each other on the shelf, I realised that they belonged together in a project. I actually couldn't take my eyes off them, and there was a lot of fabric-strokery going on in my house! After a few days of mulling it over, I decided to add some greys and a few other fabrics in similar colours and hey presto, I got this lovely bundle of cool prettiness:


That was my starting point, but I needed a project for them that would be quick and easy for my time-challenged existence. When I got my Kindle last year, I had intended to make a few different covers to swap it in and out of, but it got away from me, so I decided to do another one - the bonus being that as it was all for me, I could do whatever I wanted with it and not be wondering if someone else would like it.

This was one of those projects that took shape in my head. I had a really clear idea, once I pulled the fabric bundle, what I wanted the cover to look like - randomly pieced squares and rectangles and dense straight line quilting. At first I attempted to work out a little pattern for the piecing so I would get my measurements right but it didn't flow, so I resorted to cutting out pieces and putting them together improv-style as I went along.

Here's where it started:


But the middle was too dense with colour, so I switched it around as I pieced until I got an arrangement I was happy with - no pic as it evolved kind of organically.

I moved quickly on to quilting it very densely with straight lines spaced only 1/4" apart, using my faourite Aurifil 50wt thread in a silvery grey:


I loosely followed Clover and Violet's tute, but got the idea of an elasticated strap closure from another tute (can't remember which, apologies). I also added a fabric casing over the elastic, as my elastic was strong, but not pretty at all. I like how the fabric casing looks, I wasn't sure I would as I thought it might be fussy but I don't think it is. I also added some very stiff sew-in interfacing in the panel under the Kindle to give it a bit of structure - I found it in my interfacing box, its almost cardboard like in texture.


The only thing I was a bit unhappy about was that I slightly undermeasured the height, and hence my binding and elastic were affected a bit, and not as even and crisp looking as I wanted, but I think once I am using it I won't even notice, and I'll definitely be making another cover so I can adjust it a bit then.



All in all, I'm really happy with how it turned out and even happier that I can look at this fabric combo every day!

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18 comments:

  1. Lovely! One would think you would be over winter by now!

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  2. Really pretty! I think I'll use that tute to make a cover for my mum's tablet as a gift. Purples and greys go very we'll together, good choice!

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  3. Really pretty colours and a great way to enjoy them every day!

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  4. I love your fabric choices! I've been staring at my dark-green, with gold sun, moon and stars for over a year. Loved it when I made it, but I'm ready for something completely different. I may shamelessly steal your palette for the new one. ;-)

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  5. Now that's just super! Love the color combos you used!

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  6. A girl could get used to looking at those pretties every day ;) I need to make a cover for my nook one of these days.

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  7. Gorgeous selection of colours and prints yielding a wonderful result.

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  8. Can you make me one as well? I am so unhappy with mine! I love the colors!

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  9. Looks fabulous - love the colour palette and design x

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  10. Very nice. I may have to get a kindle so that I can make a cute cover.

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  11. Love this - the fabrics go so well together!

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  12. What a nice combination of cool fabrics!

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