Snuggy Up Your Kindle Fire

I was so excited to get my Kindle Fire for Christmas! (Thank you, from the bottom of my heart Big K!) I wanted a cover for it right away, but the prices are a little steep for what I have left in my Amazon gift card balance after Christmas. 


I have seen a couple of tutorials for Kindle and tablet covers that use elastic or pony tail elastics to secure the Kindle in the cover. I think the Fire seems a little heavy and worried that it might slide around or slip out. So I did some studying of the store bought ones and after thinking it over for several days I came up with a plan to make one with a fabric "window" to slide the Kindle into. 

It turned out to be a little harder than I originally expected. Isn't that the truth about everything though? It seems that way for me anyways. I did take some pictures for a tutorial and I will try to explain this the best I can, but I just wanted to note that this is probably not a project for a novice unless you are just extremely patient and don't mind fooling around with it for a while until you get it right. That said, I'll start with the easy part. 


Find some pretty fabric scraps that you like, and an 8 1/2" X 11" sheet of paper for the pattern. You will also need some medium to heavy weight fusible craft interfacing, about 4-5 inches of Velcro and a piece of Wonder Under or Heat and Bond. Wonder Under and Heat and Bond are paper backed sheets that you iron onto one fabric, then peel off the paper and fuse it to another layer of fabric. I think it is usually only sold in fabric stores, or Hobby Lobby and WalMart if they have a fabric department. 


I actually used a scrap of fleece for the inside lining of my snuggy because I liked the softness and the idea that it adds a little padding if my Kindle gets bumped around. Also, it happened to match the fabric I picked for the outside of the cover.

 For the outside and inside pieces I ended up using the 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper as the pattern, which left enough extra for attaching the fabric window and top stitching around the outside to hold all the layers together. So you can just forget about tracing around the Kindle and cut two rectangles of fabric and 2 rectangles of fusible interfacing. 

The pattern for the window ended up looking like this. Trace around the Kindle as close as possible. This is where I had trouble, my first one ended up being too big. You want the outside edge of this pattern to almost exactly match the size of the screen side of your Kindle. One end of the Kindle has the charger connection and power button so you will need two tabs on that end with an opening for leaving that exposed. The other end has speakers or something that you need to leave exposed so draw that tab in the center. There are two larger tabs on the long sides, one will be sewed onto the cover, the other will have a Velcro strip to close it up after you slide the Kindle in. Now draw the window opening, making sure that it is covering the dark black area around the outside of the viewing area. I measured in 1/2" from the edge and drew a straight line with my ruler on each side, then rounded the corners.

 Fuse the interfacing to the outside cover and the lining  piece.

 Now cut two rectangles of fabric and one rectangle of interfacing large enough for the window piece and fuse the interfacing to the wrong side of one of the fabric pieces. 

 Iron the Wonder Under or Heat and Bond onto the wrong side of the other fabric piece according to the directions on the product you are using. Peel the paper off and fuse the two pieces together. Note: I used Wonder Under, but I think it might have been better to use Heat and Bond because the edges on this are all unfinished and I think H&B might be a little better to prevent fraying. I have had a few loose threads I had to trim off.

 Pin the pattern on the double sided piece of fabric and cut out. I guess I didn't get a picture of the pinned part, but you will want to pin it well so that you get a very precise cut. It needs to exactly cover the top of the Kindle, not exactly like mine, which did not. I did this twice and probably could have gotten it better on the third try but... Well anyway, it worked out pretty well and I figured I'll probably want to make another one for summer and can get it perfect next time. 


Stitch all the way around the inside and outside edges of the window piece.

 Now lay your Kindle on the lining fabric and mark where you need to stitch the tabs down to hold it in tightly. You will need to make a crease on the tabs. The large tab on the outside edge gets folded under. Mark that with a pin where you will need to stitch it. Be sure that everything is centered and you leave about 1/2" all the way around. 

 This is where I discovered that the corners on the side with only one tab needed to be secured a little better to keep them from curling up, so I cut a couple of thin strips from the leftover 2 sided fabric window cutout and stitched them close to the corners of the window piece. Those will get pulled snug and stitched under.

 The large tab that is facing the center gets a piece of Velcro stitched onto the outside edge. You will need to put the Kindle in and tuck the tab under tightly and mark where to sew the other side of the Velcro. 

 I cut a 1 1/2" X 5" tab for holding the snuggy shut from the leftover cutout of the window. Topstitch all the way around the tab 1/4"  from edge, then again as close as you can get to the edge.

 Place the tab under the lining piece and stitch it down on the same stitching line as the tucked under tab. I backstitched a couple times to make sure it doesn't come loose. Stitch down all the other tabs on the lines you have marked. And stitch a piece of Velcro to the end of the tab for closing your cover.

 Stitch the other piece of Velcro to the outside cover of your snuggy. You'll have to put the Kindle in there and size it up to see where it goes. Now lay the two layers together and trim up all the edges to be sure they are straight and match up perfect. I cute a piece of paper into a pattern and rounded all the corners nicely. Pin the two layers together and topstitch all the way around 1/4" from outside edge then stitch again about 1/8" from the edge.

 Insert your Kindle and Fire it up!

You can use the Velcro strap to hold the other side of the cover out of your way when you are reading or browsing.

Now isn't this a lot nicer than walking around with a naked Kindle? I love it. If you decide to make a pretty snuggy for your Kindle I hope you will send me some pics and let me know how it turns out!

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