A Quilted Tablet Case

Hi everyone! I hope the picture quality of these images is OK, I am testing out my hudl2's camera. If everything looks OK then this is a much easier way for me to blog, it kind of cuts out the middle man (taking the photos on a camera then transferring to a laptop and then writing it up into a post) as I can just snap and write all on one device!

I can't remember if I told you about my quick(ish) little quilted project that I have been working on?  I decided to use one of the templates that came with my hexagon paper pieces to cut out my own and make a case to put my tablet in. This has been a great project to do in my lunch break at work as it was nice and portable, plus it has come together quite quickly!

Today I finished stitching together the mini hexagon pieces and removing the paper template. I was very careful to press the outside hexagons with the iron before taking out those templates to help keep the shape. 

The top was then layered over a piece of batting (left over from my quilted table runner) and the lining fabric,  before being carefully pinned in place.

As this project was quite little I decided to just go for it and stitch it without any further tacking stitches or pins- I have no idea how I am going to do my big hexagon quilt, it will definitely not fit into the sewing machine!!
To keep things systematic, I stitched along the edges of the colour rows (if that makes sense?). So worked a row at a time, zig zagging along the colour strips, then went back and worked the horizontal rows. It looked quite good, although my 'stitching in the ditch' needs a bit more practice. I'm not sure about the combination of hand stitch and then machine straight stitch over the top.

I had a little helper this afternoon too, who took it upon himself to sit on the batting and keep it warm. I think he was hoping that if he sat on it for long enough it would hatch more batting so that he would eventually be snuggled into a giant palace of batting!!! ---  Or maybe not...

After spending a very long time sewing in all of the loose threads and generally tidying away the fiddly bits! I made a binding for the small edges. This turned out to be more complicated than I first thought and involved a great deal of head scratching followed by some unpicking and reshaping of my quilted piece. Eventually though I think I cracked it and had a straight finished edge on one end and a slightly pointed finished edge at the other to act as a flap. It isn't fantastically neat but for a first attempt at binding I am pretty chuffed with it. I added a length of grosgrain ribbon to the straight edge as extra decoration, folded and pinned everything right sides together and stitched it into a little pouch (checking that the hudl2 fitted nicely into it).

(In case anyone wonders, the hudl demonstrating the pouch belongs to Dad- mine is a cool purple colour.)

 It was completely unintentional, but somehow I managed to match the fabrics on the front to continue the diagonal pattern when the case is closed. I'm totally thrilled with that!

Then all that was left to do was to find a way of keeping the flap folded. I had a quick rummage through my stash of useful bits and found a packet of 'invisible' poppers which were ideal. I have hand stitched one into each corner of the flap, and then obviously the matching side onto the body of the case.

Strangely, now they are stitched on, they kind of match one of the patterns used. Don't you love it when things turn out better than expected?
So there we are, a nice little project that has given me a list of dos and don'ts for when I put together my big hexagon quilt- always good to have a trial run!