Road Trip Case

My Mum is off on her Big O.E in a few weeks.  Seven weeks travelling around Britain and Europe.

As an early Mother's Day present, I decided I wanted to make her a Roadtrip Case, to keep her ipad mini, charger cables and notebook safely together in one place when she wasn't using them.

Using  some pretty floral fabrics from Kate Spain and a perfectly co-ordinating dot print  (all from my stash I might add) I set to work.   The instructions are clear and very detailed, however, I would recommend reading the pattern two or three times before starting to make this. 

I didn't use canvas for the interior stiffening, I found  Legacy extra firm stabiliser at Spotlight and decided to use that instead.  It definitely gave it a nice firm finish and shape, and I like to think a little extra padding too.  I also decided not to use velcro (hook and loop) fastening on the pockets, instead using small elastic hair ties and some purple buttons from my stash. and I didn't split the pleated pockets into four, rather I kept it as two, so there was plenty of room for a note book and her cables.  I did consult with Mum slightly on this, and she decided she didn't want the handles on her case, so again I have just used a pretty button and elastic hair tie to keep it closed.

This was the first time I have made continuous bias binding,  and I used this tutorial to show me how.  I machine sewed the first fold of the binding, it was a little tricky around the curves and something I definitely need some practice at, then hand stitched the rest down as I would on a quilt.

Some useful tips  for me to remember should I make this again:

• when sewing vinyl, to stop it from sticking to the sewing plate, place a piece of paper under- neath it.
• hand baste the zip and zip bindings to the vinyl, before machine sewing it in
• use lots of pins to hold the pocket pleats in place and I also used a few tiny stitches at the top of the pleats to hold them together.

I love how this has turned out, and hope that Mum enjoys using it on her travels.  And yes, I would make this pattern again.