Saturday, December 13, 2014

Quilted Zippered Ipad Mini Case Review

Just wanted to do a quick post about the quilted zippered ipad mini case I sewed last night! (that's a mouthful) I ordered myself an ipad mini during Cyber Monday week and it finally came!! I wanted to whip up a case so that I could safely take it on the plane with me this week; I followed Sew Caroline's tutorial. I do have an iHome smart book cover on it. Here's my finished product and some thoughts about the process.





Isn't it so cute?? I got the fabric in Taiwan and had no idea what I was going to use it for so it sat in my closet for over a year. I also added a "From Woo to You" tag :D

Quilting
This was the first time I had attempted free motion quilting, where you control the fabric under the needle to create a pattern. And yes, I had to google, "what are quilted lines called" to get to the term "free motion quilting" haha! Notice the black wavy lines in the picture below? It's actually pretty satisfying! In order to get comfortable with free-handing the wavy line process, I practiced on a scrap piece of fabric. I actually initially chose a yellow thread to match the inside fabric, but it seemed to clash too much with the cats. The cats need to stand on their own!

Also, I thought using safety pins to pin all over the fabric instead of using straight pins was interesting. Apparently, that's so you don't stick yourself since you have to have a good number of them across the fabric to hold the layers in place and move the fabric around under the sewing needle. No bleeding on the project, please!




Zipper
I've completed a few zippered projects (e.g., pencil skirt, zippered pouch) but I'm still afraid of installing zippers! The whole process confuses me so I have to always double, quadruple check that I'm sewing it the right way. Sew Caroline's tutorial kind of glossed over this step so I had to spend quite a bit of time trying to figure it out!

Sew Caroline's Instructions:
Step Four: Place your zipper face down on the RIGHT side of the outside of your pouch. The zipper teeth should be about 1″ from the top edge. Stitch in place.

Step Five: Repeat this with the other size of the zipper and the other side of the outside of the pouch.

Instructions Deciphered:
Step Four: Stitch in place along the TOP edge of the zipper, like where the pointed needle pokes out in her picture.

Step Five: Then flip this piece over and place it on top of the other piece so that the Right sides are facing each other on the inside, and Wrong sides are outside. Fold the top piece down, so that you see the zipper. The zipper pull should now be on the left side and the stitched line should be on the bottom. You'll sew along the top edge of the zipper now to the bottom fabric. Does that make more sense??

The thing I don't like about this method of installing the zipper is that once you flip it inside out, you see the outside fabric sticking out... The next time I sew this, I'll have to figure out a way to hide this...


Also, I used a 7" zipper. I'd probably use a 9" zipper next time, just because the opening to put the ipad mini in is a bit tight...

Machine Feet
I used a walking foot for the majority of this project, except for the zipper part where I used a zipper foot. A walking foot is good for quilting or working with slippery fabrics since it pulls the top fabric along with the bottom fabric. Ever sew pieces of fabric together and then they don't line up at the end? So frustrating! A walking foot helps with that. I used this YouTube video to understand how it works and how to install it.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the end product. What do you think?