Pattern Making - Laptop Sleeve

So because I'm cheap and crafty (in some cases they are the same thing!) I decided to sew myself up a laptop sleeve. 

I knew that I wanted to have a cool angular part to it, and I wanted it to be big enough to be able to fit papers in with it. Which meant that it had to act as more of a folder/bad type thing then a typical sleeve.

So because I kinda had in my head what I wanted, I figured that I would give pattern making a crack! 

First thing that I did was grab some handy dandy newspaper, and a permanent maker. Good thing with newspaper is it is cheap, and I can cut it up and fold it to make sure that it was going to work!

Next I put my laptop on top of the newspaper and figured out how big sleeve I wanted. Now I am untrusting of my cutting ability and my sewing with small seams ability (both of which come from a relatively new sewer) so I gave myself quite a bit of allowance just to make sure that I didn't screw it up royally. 

Then I cut straight up the line. I knew that my case was going to be that wide, so all that I had to do next was figure out how long it needed to be, and what I wanted the lid to look like. So I folded it up to make it in to what I wanted.

My pretty newspaper sleeve

Next I cut out my "pattern". I decided to cut out 2 of them (just in case I decided I wanted to do a lining.

And now I was ready to use my patterns! This is when I got the biggest learning curve about pattern making. I did way more work than I needed too. 

I only needed to do one pattern ( I definitely didn't need 2). And because I was doing the lid in a different fabric from the rest of the sleeve, it was seriously unhelpful to have it attached to the rest of the pattern. 

So I cut it off. 

I then realised that I didn't need to have a pattern that was for the entire "sleeve" part of it. Especially if I wanted to add a pocket on the outside for more papers or other things, then I really couldn't do it as one continuous piece. 

So I cut it in half. 

So, to summarise the steps for pattern making (something as easy as a laptop sleeve)

Steps:

1. grab your pattern making material (i.e. newspaper)
2. figure out the width 
3. figure out the length/ lid/ any other fancy fabric details 
4. figure out if you have done too much work, and what you actually want (this step is optional!) 

Till next time, and my completed sleeve! 

Dat girl