Mini Laptop Sleeves: How to Make a Laptop Sleeve

Owning the best laptop is a dream of every gadget freak. You spend a lot of time researching in order to buy the best laptop, and then spend a huge amount of money to purchase it. Once you own it, your world is this mini laptop and you carry it everywhere you go. So this goes without saying, that you need to take care of your special gadget. No no, I am not talking about installing an anti-virus for securing data on your laptop, I am talking about its handling care, so that it is not damaged. Let us learn how to make a laptop sleeve. You can explore your creativity and have mini laptop sleeves to suit your style.

How to Make a Laptop Sleeve Cover

Before we proceed, here are a few tips for choosing the fabric for mini laptop sleeves.

• You can buy fabrics like cotton, hosiery, denim, leather, regzine, nylon, etc.
• Hosiery fabric is more suitable for women laptop computer sleeves. Also, fabric with floral prints, colorful stripes and polka dots should preferably be used for women laptop computer sleeves.
• Men can opt for leather, nylon or regzine fabric. But, make sure the sleeve leather is not too hard, because that may cause a problem while sewing it into a stylish laptop case.
• You can take a plain fabric and do some painting over it by yourself.
• If you add a cushioning fabric from the inner side, that will be an added safety feature to your laptop sleeve. Padded laptop sleeve proves really useful in case it drops while the laptop is inside.

Things you'll need for making the mini laptop sleeves:

• Fabric
• Padding fabric
• Scissors
• Thread
• Measure tape
• Sewing machine
• Needle
• Decorative items like buttons, beads, laces, etc.

Let's come to the actual procedure of making a laptop computer sleeve.

Step 1: Determine the size of your laptop. Measure the width and height of your laptop. Take a fabric that is 2 inches more than each dimension. This extra fabric will be useful for stitching/sewing errors, if any and for the easy movement of laptop in and out of the sleeve. Like for 17 inch laptop sleeves, 1 yard of 45 inches wide fabric is enough. But remember, the sleeve should not be too large; it should be a perfect fit in order to act as a safety cover.

Step 2: If you are using a thick padding, take one more inch of the fabric.

Step 3: Sew the outer fabric and the cushioning fabric to each other. Place the cushioning fabric over the inner side of the cover fabric. Also, tack the padding properly with a few stitches from top to bottom to make it stay in place. Skip this step if you are not using a cushioning fabric.

Step 4: Spice up the fabric with laces, beads, patch work or buttons. Skip this step if you don't want to decorate it.

Step 5: Fold the fabric in the center so that its right side goes inside. Sew it up with the help of a sewing machine. Stitch it height wise, so that the folded part forms the base and one side is kept open for the laptop to move in and out.

Step 6: Reverse the fabric to have the right side out.

Step 7: You can go for a zipper or a Velcro as a closure for your sleeve. You can attach decorative cords, old bag's belt or small handles made of same fabric to hold your laptop sleeve.

Step 8: You can also have laptop bags and sleeves combo: Take the remaining fabric and stitch it from the inner side to make pockets. Take another rectangular piece of fabric and attach its three borders to your sleeve to create an outer pocket. Make sure the pocket opens towards the opening of your sleeve. You can add pockets keeping in mind the size of laptop battery charger cable, memory sticks, other laptop accessories, pens, personal documents and other attachments of the laptop. Attach a belt to the open ends. You can also have two belts on each side of the opening to give it a briefcase feel.

Follow the above procedure of how to make a laptop sleeve. Use the fabric and embellishments according to your taste; enjoy making mini laptop sleeves. Get ready to carry that amazing piece of technology inside an attractive laptop sleeve showing off your unique style.