Nook bag

Aaron got me a Nook for my birthday. It is AMAZING!! I love it! The only thing is, even with the cover I bought from Barnes and Noble, I didn't feel comfortable just throwing it into my diaper bag or purse. So, I decided to embark on creating a bag to carry it in. Now I know that random little things won't get stuck in the cover. And best of all. I made it with a cheap fabric bag that I bought at Toys R Us (for like $.60), some brown thread I had from another sewing project, and some buttons from my scrapbooking collection (they are technically sewing buttons, I just use them for scrapping). It was an almost entirely free project. I love it! There are few flaws in it (mostly I should have sewn the buttons over just a little bit) but I am thrilled with how it turned out. Can't wait to try it out! Next doctor's appointment I will be ready!

Here is the original bag. Cute, huh? 100% polyester. Not so great for clothes but great for a bag. It was twice the size of my Nook in its cover.

The first thing I did was cut off the front and back. I cut off all of the seams and saved the handles, sides, and bottom. All of the pieces where there was stitching I discarded.

The next step was to determine the size I needed. Originally I was going to put in a zipper but I hit a snag with that idea (need to practice inserting zippers in things other than lightweight cotton clothing), so in this picture it is actually longer than it ended up being. But here you can see one of the sides and the front panel. I took the original sides and cut them into four equal pieces. That way I would have two sides for the outside portion of the bag and two for the liner.

The next step was to put the sides, front, back, and bottom together. Here you can see the outside of the bag all assembled. The top is pinned and ready for me to do the hem and give it a finished look (this was when I still thought there would be a zipper and wasn't going to use the handles). 

Here is another picture of the outside of the bag. You can see the inside seams and can see that it is not yet lined. The lining is the exact same as the outside. I simply turned it wrong side out (so that the wrong sides of the outside and the wrong sides of the inside were facing one another) so that the design was on the inside as well as on the outside. This also hid all but the top seam.

 After deciding I did not want to have a zipper, I needed to come up with a way to fasten the bag closed or it would defeat my purposes. So I decided to create a little flap that would fold over and then have a button hole. That way I could button it closed. Here is a picture of the scrap fabric (from the original bag) that I sewed (inside out to create a nice seam). It is pinned and ready to go. (The side that isn't pinned I left unsown so that I could turn it right side out. It was later sewn into the top seam of the bag.)

Here is the final product! See how the button pulls the tab slightly to the side? That is the only thing I don't like. The buttons are light and dark blue, by the way. I hate the lighting in our dining room. You can see I took the handles (I cut them shorter than they were originally) and attached them. I sewed them on at the same time that I attached the button flap and did the top seams.

And here it is with my Nook. All ready to go!

PS. If anyone would like me to create something similar for them, for any electronic device (or just a cute bag), please email me at adaynasmile@gmail.com. I would love to discuss ideas with you!