Sewing Craft: How to Make a Riley Blake Designs Laptop Bag

by Tara Rex on November 7th, 2012 | 2 Comments »

I have fallen in love with Riley Blake Designs and have made myself a fancy schmancy laptop bag with their vinyl fabric. Chevron and polka dots is where it's at, right?!

I'm digging the blue and white chevron against the tangerine and orange polka dots. Nobody else in this world will have one like this (well, maybe you might now after you see how fun it looks).

Sewing with Laminate Fabric

This was the first time I had sewn with laminate fabric. As daunting as it looked, it really wasn't difficult and went relatively smoothly. There are tips and tricks to sewing with laminate, such as using scotch tape on both the bottom of the presser foot and along the base of the machine where where material passes through. I didn't actually do this and it worked well (I'm lazy and the tape was downstairs). Although, I think it may have helped the laminate slip through better. No biggie, it sewed fine and I was happy with how the laptop bag turned out.

My New Laptop Bag

My sweet laptop bag has a nifty pen pocket that will hold three pens and a little pocket to hold my sweet little pen drive or a small cable.

A medium pocket for my power cord and much more. You could fit a couple of books in here easily as well.

A large pocket for my laptop. It fits my Macbook Air or a Dell Laptop that my husband has with plenty of room to spare as well.

I just love the contrast of the colors. It adds a lot of character and certainly stands out amongst the other generic laptop bags. I've always loved polka dots and I'm all over chevron print (I actually want to paint one of my walls in chevron).

You can use one long or two shorter zippers with this pattern. I chose two shorter zippers just because and I am happy with it.

I hope you enjoyed this and are ready to jump in and sew with a material you've never tried before. I had never seen myself sewing with laminate in the past, but I'm sure glad I have now. The "fear of the unknown" is gone now. It's just like with anything new: it's a bit scary, but once you overcome it and tackle it, those feelings and reservations are flattened.

Have you tried sewing with laminate fabric? What did you make?

Tara can be found sewing and/or blogging into the wee hours of the night after her 2 little guys go down for sweet dreams. She is the owner/designer of Taradara, an artsy fartsy sewing company and she keeps her blog going over at taradaramadeit.com. She is trained as a nurse, but has traded the fast paced craziness of the ER for the craziness of motherhood! She has built her handmade business and blog up from the closest to the ground as you can get to what it is today. Her products are in the hands of many celebrities {Beyonce, Rachael Ray, Uma Thurman, and more} and is in the December 2012 issue of Sew It All magazine. There is NEVER a dull moment with her! Truly! Follow and connect with her interesting life on twitter, pinterest, and on facebook.