My poor iPod needs a soft, padded home before it gets totally trashed. I tend to toss it into the depths of my purse – along with the headphones, the charging cord, my keys, loose change and sometimes a rogue emery board (yikes). Not good for the cute little touch screen.
There are lots of great patterns out in the crafterverse for cases. You can make them for your iPod, your cellphone, your e-reader, your laptop and plenty of other devices that need stowing. Here are the features I wanted and some patterns that offered them:
• Good padding: The channel quilting and clever pocket design on this camera case from Pink Penguin made it very tempting, but I wanted something a little more snug.
• Secure top-down flap: The nice button-and-loop catch and simple top-down flap are selling points on this iPod/camera cozy from Sew Mama Sew.
• Extra pocket for charging cord/headphones: I love the multiple pockets on this custom multi-device case from Hammer and Thread, but it's a wee bit too big. Plus, I'm not too crazy about pleather, no matter how you slice it. But this pattern is the closest thing to what I was thinking of.
While these are all really nice designs, I didn't see one that had everything I wanted. Nothing was just right. (I know, I sound like Goldilocks.) And while I have been burned before when improvising, I figured that I'd give it a go and see what I could come up with using a little inspiration from the cases that were close but no cigar.
Hrrrm. Not quite ready for its close-up.
I got about halfway through the design and realized there were a few flaws in my plan. I liked the random quilting on the pocket and the back, but I hadn't thought about the fact that the lines would show on the back when I sewed on the pockets. Good thing that's a busy black-and-white print, eh?
The kicker was that the cord pocket turned out too narrow. The iPod pocket is perfect, and the headphones fit in the other pocket nicely. But no matter how I wrapped or squished the charging cord, it just wouldn't fit in with the headphones. Alas.
So back to the drawing board I go. I think I'll have a look around for some more pattern inspiration. If you want some, too, here are some more links to look at.
Happy designing (and re-designing)!
