Geek Chic: (e)Book Lover

If you use this tutorial I'd love to see your creation! 

Feel free to post it to the Handmade Mommy Tutorials Flickr Pool.

Last year my ever sweet husband gave me the best Mother's Day gift: a Sony Reader. If you love reading and don't have a digital reader yet, stay as far away from them as possible. You have been warned. Once you get hooked, you're done for. Case in point: me. I love the ability to carry around literally hundreds of books in my purse and pull it out anytime. You can get great deals on ebooks (electronic books) online and the classics are all free through Google. But enough of my inadvertent sales pitch!

The point here is that I was bored with the classy leather case I have for my reader. It's sturdy and nice but I'm constantly worried that it will get marred in my bag. I wanted to cover it up with some cute fabric and was trying to explain my plans to a girlfriend. She looked at me and said, "You mean, like a Bible cover?" Exactly! So I have made a techy, geeky version of the Bible cover for my reader. If you have a digital reader (Sony Reader, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, etc.), or a loved one does, here is a tutorial with instructions to make a personalized cover. I have already imagined a dozen different slightly geeky/slightly chic variations on this...and it's beyond easy!

Oh, and if you don't have a hard "jacket" like mine for your reader, hop on over to Junie Moon and check out the awesome bag (with tutorial) she whipped up for her Kindle. She was nice enough to let me post it here. Her craftsmanship is great and the design is perfect.

Start with pre-washed, ironed fabric and put two pieces right sides together. 

All you really need are a couple of scraps.

Lay out your reader with the case open and trace around it with a fabric marking pen.

Cut our your fabric leaving about a 1/2" allowance all the way around. 

This does not need to exact.

Take your inside fabric, fold it in half, and cut along the fold.

Now fold back each half away from the center wrong sides together, about 1/3 of the width...does that make sense? They should look like this. Then pin these folds in place.

If you want to stitch/embroider/applique anything fun on the outside piece, now is the time to do it. I ironed heavyweight fusible interfacing onto the back of my outside piece and free motion stitched "bookworm" onto mine...in case anyone is confused when they see me absorbed...

Now line up your outside and inside pieces with right sides together, like so.

Flip them over so that your fabric pen markings are facing up. 

Now pin all the way around.

Stitch just outside the line you traced, all the way around...about like this...

Trim your corners, turn your cover right side out, and press.
(Keep in mind that the center top and center bottom will just be folded and pressed with raw edges. Since they're tucked inside against the reader this shouldn't be a problem.)
Now tuck your reader into its brand spanking new cover...

and make everyone jealous that your book is hipper than theirs!

fun fact: my little tutorial has been featured on whipup here!

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