Father's Day Gift Ideas: Leather ipod Case

With Father's Day approaching I thought that I should probably come up with some sort of gift for my husband.  He is a terrific father, and I sure do appreciate him.

I decided to use some materials that I had on hand to make him a protective sleeve for his ipod.  Clark loves his ipod, and is a little rough with it.  I figured that a sleeve would protect it, and possibly disguise it.

I used a scrap piece of black leather, one piece of felt (I just used craft felt, but wool felt would probably be better), a leather sewing machine needle, and heavy duty thread.  I cut the leather about 3/4" larger than the size of the ipod, and then used a spool of thread to trace a semi circle on one piece of the leather for a small cut out.  I  positioned the two pieces of felt on the inside of the leather, did some top stitching on the open end of the sleeve, and a couple of decorative rows of stitching in the center.  I then attached them together on the three sides, and I was done. It was such a quick project, 20 minutes tops.

Hopefully he'll appreciate the small gesture.  Now I need to find some quick projects for my father and father in law.  Any suggestions on inexpensive/quick gifts?

Thanks for reading, and happy sewing. I'm off to bind a quilt.

Vinyl Gift Card Sleeve for Father's Day...or any occasion for that matter

This is a super quick project, and a really fun way to present a gift card to someone.  The great thing about making a gift card sleeve is that it can be used after the gift card is spent.  The Gift Card sleeve can be repurposed and used as a bookmark, a business card holder, an ID card holder, ect.  I also love the idea of modifying the pattern to create a sleeve for concert tickets or game tickets, or adding some outdoorsy paper for storage of a hunting or fishing license.

The Gift Card Sleeve is made from vinyl (scraps from the bibs) and paper of your choice.  This really is a very customizable project. You could use old maps, magazine pages, pages from a damaged picture book, ect.

This pattern is pretty easy to figure out on your own, but if you want some help you can download the template and instructions here.