Faux Leather Kindle Cover

I love to sew for my self, and I often sew for my son, but one person that I don't often sew for is my husband.  I attempted to sew a dress tie for him at one point, but that is about as much as I've done. 

My husband loves to read.  He takes his Kindle with him most places that he goes.  When his Kindle Cover broke I knew that it was time to put my sewing skills to good work and save the day.  When I volunteered to make him a cover, I think that he feared he'd be left with a quilted cover made of cotton. This is what I came up with:

While I'm not going to give you a tutorial, here are a few tidbits of information.

I used up the remaining brown vinyl that I had on hand (left over from this belt, and these baby booties). Some additional materials that I used were two small magnets, and some scrap chipboard from the back of sketch pads, and a piece of elastic.  

I cut two pieces of chipboard that were about 1/2" (length and width wise) than his kindle.  I also cut two  piece of chipboard that were about 1 1/2" in length, and the same width as the larger chip board pieces.  These two smaller pieces of chip board served in creating the band around the outer cover, and also aided in holding the one of the magnets in place.   

I ended up punching a hole in the one of the small strips of chipboard.  The hole was just larger than the magnet and allowed for the magnet to be almost flush with the rest of the cover.  I then taped the magnet to the chipboard on either side so that it would not come loose when attracted to another object.  The second magnet was attached to a strap using a pouch method similar to that used in the magnetic numbers and magnetic toddler bib projects that I've done.   

When designing the cover I knew that I wanted to Kindle to be accessible when attached to the cover.  I used two thin pieces of vinyl to create these tabs on two ends of the cover.  I also attached the piece of elastic so that it fit right between the buttons and didn't interfere with the display.  

On the opposite side of the inside case I created two sleeves.  I had intended for these to be for papers, but the kindle fits nicely inside and allows for easy storage if you have to get up and go.

Some of you might be having the same concern as I did with using magnets in a storage case for an electronic.  I did some research and found that there were several ready made cases that use a magnetic closure.  I also read that magnets do not interfere at all with kindle functionality.  In any case, the kindle isn't ever directly exposed to the magnets.  The magnet that is attached to the cover is separated by a minimum of one layer of chipboard and one layer of vinyl.

If I were to do this project again I would do one thing differently.  I would spray the chipboards with spray adhesive and stick it to the vinyl before sewing (not spraying the vinyl which would gum up your sewing machine).  I think that spraying the chipboard would allow for easier handling when stitching the case together.  I found this project to be one of the more difficult vinyl projects because of the issue of shifting chipboard and multiple layers of vinyl.

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