…my quick & easy DIY kindle cover…

Just after mothers day, I noticed Kindles were on special. I’d been wanting one for ages, and having recently bought our block where we planned to spend time in a caravan, and thus space being at a premium, I thought it was as good an excuse as any to buy one (yes, I know it’s a very flimsy excuse. But anyone who’s been around here for any length of time knows self-control isn’t exactly my strong point).

In perfect timing, it arrived on a Friday, the day before we were due to do a roadtrip down the mountain to visit my mother-in-law. I switched it on, and set it up…not going to lie, the fact it was pre-authorisedfor my amazon account and greeted me by name was more than a little creepy. It was nice, however, to be able to just tap two of my recent purchases and download them for the trip.

I did contemplate taking it as it was, but with my bag rather full of all the bits and pieces I needed for the trip, the odds of accidental damage seemed rather high, so I figured I should get busy with my sewing machine and make a cover (in typing it out, it seems like the second flimsy excuse in the last three paragraphs). With the family fed and happily ensconced in front of the telly for our traditional Friday night movie, I grabbed myself a cheeky vino and headed to the craft room.

I did a bit of a Pinterest search, but everything was multiple layers and rather involved, along the line of the cover I made for Kylie’s camp gift, while I was looking more for the simple, knock it out in a night, type of project, which also required a minimum of fabric. I had a fat quarter of gorgeous yellow fabric gifted by my sweet friend Joy many moons ago now, when she made me a dolls quilt for my craft room in a swap (which still has pride of place above my storage cabinet), that I had been saving for just the right project, and it was just about the right size for the cover, so I wanted to be sure I didn’t leave myself short by making it too complicated.

I had a bit more of a dig through my stash, and came up with a piece of batting about as wide as a kindle is high, and a piece of denim about the same size. Laying all three on my desk, I fiddled with folds and sizing and working out in my head how it would all fit together, and in the end, decided that what I had in mind would work, and took the plunge with my long-stashed fabric, with a simple trifold design.

The yellow was wider, vertically, than the denim, and I was determined not to waste a scrap of it, so ended up sewing the denim & yellow into a tube, and then turning right side out and pressing it with the denim centered, leaving a yellow outside and yellow border on the inside, to create a finished tube 8.75″ x 12″. Once pressed, I turned it inside out again, and used my paper piecing glue pen to baste the batting  (trimmed to 7″x 12″) to the denim, before carefully turning right side out again and then pinning all three layers together, ensuring everything was nice and flat and centred still. Using my actual kindle as a template, and with the fabric sandwich on my cutting mat denim side up, I slid it back and forth, experimenting with the folds until I had a layout I was happy with. Once I worked out how much of an overlap I wanted, I used my Hera marker & quilting ruler to mark a line approximately 1/8” from each side of the kindle (total distance between lines of 4.75″). With the markings in place, I turned my attention to the top and bottom turnovers, which would hold the kindle in place. Again, I worked this out by leaving my kindle in place, and turning the edges over to see where they landed, and adjusting as needed. In the end, I went with just under 7/8″ turnover for the top, and 1″ for the  bottom. I then removed the kindle, and pinned the fold-overs in place. With the sides marked and top & bottoms pinned, it was time for trimming and top-stitching!

To start with, I top-stitched the two markings for the sides of the Kindle, catching the top and bottom folds and holding them in place. With that done, I could trim the batting to 2″ on the right hand side, and 4.25″ on the left, and then tuck in the raw edges against the trimmed batting, and top stitch closed. Step three was to topstitch the folds down, either side of the kindle pocket, with two rows of topstitching.

To finish, I added velcro to hold it closed – the loops on the inside left, and the hooks on the outside right. Not only does this hold it closed when not in use, but the flaps simply wrap around the back and velcro back together to keep them out of the way when I’m reading.