Pattern Review - Laptop Envelope

Alright, I'll admit it. Calling this a 'pattern' is a bit of an overstatement. It's really just a pair of rectangles cut to the size of my MacBook plus a little, and an attached flap closure. But I learned a couple of things making it that I thought might be helpful to other folks, so here goes.

I needed a sleeve for my laptop, since I travel with it on business. I don't like any of the laptop cases I have seen, with the exception of a $4000 Hermes one, and I just didn't like it enough to justify the cost.
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Snort!
Sorry, I tried to say that with a straight face and failed miserably. But it's true that the only one I have seen and liked was at the Hermes store, and, well, no. I'll stick with my oversized bag and just make a sleeve to protect my MacBook, thanks. But of course, it has to be a fabulous sleeve, right? Right! So I went rifling through my stash of leathers. I have a ton from my handbag making days. I found this ( Tom and Lorenzo forgive me) utterly Judy Jetson silver lambskin that I bought from Kashi at Metro way back when. Bingo! Just glitzy enough. Slightly over the top, but not garish. I wonder if I could find enough to make a trench coat with it? Now that would be garish! But no, T&L would never forgive me. Sorry, I digress...

This went together so easily. The lambskin was a dream to work with. There were just a couple of things to note. I sewed this up on my Juki industrial, using a 3.5mm stitch length. I ran a couple of swatches through before sewing, and I'm glad I did. I used a leather needle in size 14, and I was getting tons of badly skipped stitches. Hmmm.... Skipped stitches=wrong needle in most cases. But this was leather, so I tried stitching with tissue between the feed dogs and the leather. Nope, still skipped. So I changed the needle to a regular size 12, not leather. Bingo, it worked like a charm! No skipped stitches, and the stitches are perfectly balanced.

I used regular polyester thread in light grey to blend in with the silver. I used metal binder clips instead of pins to hold the leather while sewing. And I attached a magnetic snap on the flap and front panel as a closure. I sewed a piece of leather to the back of the magnetic snap to protect the computer (not like it's a heavy duty magnet, but why take chances, right?) from both the magnet and from being scratched by the hardware.

All in all this project took about an hour from start to finish. You can make one of these in very short order, and it's a stylish way to carry your computer or documents. Here's a picture with the latpop in it:


Happy sewing!