Sometimes you’re just a little bit out of luck – the zipper on my college backpack broke here in Spain. That wouldn’t be too bad, if it hadn’t an integrated laptop case and my other laptop case is of course safe at home – a thousand miles from here. The post is very slow here, so my case wouldn’t arrive before Christmas, when I’ll go home anyway and I didn’t want to buy another one. What to do?

I went to the next Cheap-Junk-and-Everything-You-Can-Imagine-Store and crafted my very own laptop case on a whim. It worked for the case I made for my camera, so what could possibly go wrong? :D Cost: just about 4$ if you count tools as well.  It took my about half an hour to make it. Not bad, huh? ;)

You need:

• thick fabric, e.g. an old scarf (maybe folded into two layers?), a nice rug or whatever you can find
• thick wool or yarn, depending on your material
• crochet hook or sewing needle

I chose my rug because it is thick, cheap, has nice colours and the perfect size. The best thing about this kind of rug is, that the hem has a lot of loops which made the sewing extremely easy. Your fabric should be thrice as long as the short side of your laptop and the width should be about as long as the long side of your device plus a little bit (you need room to sew). If your material doesn’t already have the correct measurements cut it to size and stitch it up.

Flatten out your fabric, the side that is supposed to be on the outside later facing up. Place your device on it and flip up the lower part of the material until your laptop is safely covered. It already looks like your case now, just inside out. Mark the sides, take out the laptop and stitch the sides together. With my rug I only had to pull the wool through the loops, using blind-stitch, and make a knot at the lower end and cut off the rest of the strings. Turn it the right way round and you’ll already have your case! I am not very good at explaining this, so I drew it out:

I used the rest of the wool to crochet a square and stitched it to my case, so now I can put it my phone, flash drive, external hard drive or whatever I need in it. Your options are endless – heart shaped pockets, hooks, patches, … – just stitch it up and you’re done :) Here’s my piece inside out:

And another time the right way round and closed:

When I get home I plan on making a shoulder strap out of two old belts. Just latch them together with the buckle, cut it to the perfect length for you, punch holes into the ends and stitch it onto the case :) The best thing about this idea is that the strap is adjustable thanks to the buckle holding the belts together ;)

Of course you don’t need to have a laptop to make such a bag! As soon as I crafted my shoulder strap I’ll certainly use it as a normal bag as well.

XOXO

Sarah