You will need:

- one  10″ x 3 3/8″ piece of quilting-weight fabric for the outside.
- one 10″ x 3 3/8″ piece of quilting-weight fabric for the lining.
- one 9 1/2″ x 3 1/8″ piece of fusible fleece.
- one 1 1/4″ x 2 3/4″ piece of exterior fabric.
- one 1 1/4″ x 2 3/4″ piece of lining fabric.
- one set of Velcro dots (if you don’t have the round dots, you could also cut small squares for this – no biggie!)
- some double-sided sewing tape.  This is optional but a useful tool!
- an iPod Touch! (also optional, especially if you’re planning to give this as a gift!)

First, a few small notes:

• You may notice that I’m using Denyse Schmidt’s Hope Valley fabric.  Yum!  Also, it’s perfect for this, because it’s non-directional.  This tutorial works best with fabrics whose patterns don’t have a top and bottom.  Know what I mean?

• Also, all seams are 1/4″ unless otherwise specified (like in that one spot later on in which I specify a 1/2″ seam).

• Just to be clear, I created this tutorial based around my 8GB iPod Touch that I got a bit over a year ago.  the newer iPods may have slightly different (thinner) dimensions.

Now that you know what you need, let’s get this show on the road.

1.  Cut out the fabric

That wasn’t so bad, was it?  You can now rest your cutting muscles, but warm up your ironing muscles.  Ok, next up – fusible fleece.

2.  Attach fusible fleece to lining

The fleece is sized to be slightly smaller than your lining fabric.  You’ll want to center the fusible side of the fleece on the wrong side of the lining fabric, so it’s not actually touching any of the edges.  This means that your seams won’t be quite as bulky when you finally sew everything together.  Clever, no?

Once it’s centered, flip the lining + fleece over so that the right side of the lining is facing up.  Haul out the iron from the closet and warm up that bad boy to the wool/steam setting.

Stretch…  crack your knuckles. One, two, three… Fuse!

3. Fold lining in half and sew the long sides of lining together

Fold the lining in half widthwise, right sides together, so the two short ends are together.  The fuzzy part of your fleece should be facing out, like so:

Pin the sides together, and sew both long sides of the lining.  Do not sew the top or bottom – just the two long sides!

4.  Attach velcro to outer fabric

First, fold your outer fabric in half lengthwise (long edges together) and finger-press so that you can see a slight crease, as in the picture below.  This will help you to get the pesky Velcro centered on the fabric when the time comes to sew it on.

Grab one part of your Velcro pair.  I like to put the firm (not the fuzzy) part on the main body of the iPod cover, so reach for that one.

Now, reach for your double-sided tape, if you have some. (If you don’t reach for some pins.)

Stick or pin the Velcro so that the top of the dot is 1″ below the top of the fabric.  Now sew!

5.  Fold the exterior in half and sew the long edges of together

Fold the outside in the same way that you folded the lining – widthwise, right sides together so the short sides are lined up together.   Now sew a seam down each of the long sides.  Once again, don’t sew the top or bottom edges together.

Now let’s see what we’ve got. You should have two pieces that look like this:

5a.  Trim the edges of each of the pieces

Is it unfair to have a 5a?  Probably, but hey, they say not much in life is fair, right?  Plus, this tough love attitude will get you a great finished product!  Really!

Anyway,  you really ought to trim about 1/8″ away from the side seams of both the lining and the outer pieces.  Once you’re done hop over to number 6!

6. Attach fuzzy  Velcro piece to the lining of the flap

Once more, reach for your pins or your double-sided tape.  Center the Velcro, fuzzy side up, about 3/4″ from the bottom of your lining piece for the flap.  Here’s a picture of the under-side of the Velcro dot with the double-sided tape, getting ready to be stuck to the fabric:

Now sew the Velcro dot to the lining fabric!  Can’t you just see this all coming together?  Your iPod Touch will soon have this adorable flap to hold it snugly in place.

7. Sew together the flap and turn inside out

Now take the exterior flap piece and the interior piece you just sewed Velcro onto, and place them right sides together. Sew three sides together – the two long sides, plus the short side closest to the velcro you just sewed on.  Leave the remaining short side open, like below.

Trim the three sewn sides, and make diagonal cuts at the bottom corners. This is to reduce bulk when you turn this sucker inside out. Take care not to cut your seams!

Now turn the flap inside out. Beware!  This flap is small.  You should invoke the help of something pointy (but not sharp) to help you turn it inside out. This is by far the most challenging part of the tutorial!  I rely on my stash of trusty cheap Bic mechanical pencils.

8.  Iron and topstitch three sides of the flap

All done turning?  (Did you invoke your favorite mechanical pencil?)

Now give it a quick iron, and topstitch the three sewn sides, leaving the opening… well… open.

Yay!  You’re done with the flap!

9. Reassess the situation

You’re almost done!  Take a sec and lay out what you’ve done. If you turn your lining right side out, the pieces you have in front of you should look something like this:

Ready to move on to the last steps? All that’s left is the final assembly.

10. Place the lining bag inside the exterior bag

First, make sure the lining is right-side out.

Next, make sure the exterior piece is right-side in.

Third, insert lining into the exterior, like so:

Once you’re done, the top edges of the lining pouch and the exterior pouch should be flush.  Line up the exterior seam with the lining seam on each side.  It’s these little finishing touches that make all the difference!

Now, mark the center of the back of the pouch:

11. Place the flap between the lining and the exterior

This one gets its own step because it’s kind of tricky to explain.  Thankfully, I have visual aids!  (This is the part where, in real life, I might whip out a Powerpoint slide presentation, plus some props, to demonstrate the technique.  Alas, this isn’t that kind of real life, I guess!  Today we’ll use annotated images instead!)

Insert the flap between the back of the exterior pouch and the lining pouch, making a flap sandwich. Make sure that you don’t place the flap on the same side as the Velcro that you put on the body of the exterior pouch!

Push the flap down all the way so that the opening is flush with the edges of the lining and the exterior.  Now pin it all together, leaving a ~3 – 4″ opening at the front of the pouch!

12.  Sew all the way around the pouch, except for the 3-4″ opening you left unpinned

Sew using a 1/2″ seam from one pinned end to the other. This is kind of tricky!  In the picture below, you’ll see that, since the pouch is so small, there’s no way to get this around the free arm.  Instead, you have to sew from the inside, and hold the rest of the pouch off to the side so that you don’t sew the entire pouch together by accident!

13.  Done?  Now turn the pouch inside out!

This is the fun part!  It’s like watching a butterfly emerge from its cocoon after eating one apple, two pears, three plums, four strawberries…

14.  Sanity check!

Sanity check:  Now that the cover is turned right side out and is almost done, does the iPod touch fit?

Because we’re skeptical by nature, let’s make double sure.

Yup!  Fits.  Moving on.  Time to stitch up that hole and apply our finishing touches!

15. Pin and topstitch.

The back and sides of the top of  your iPod Touch cover should be stitched nicely together but you might recall that we left a big opening in the front to allow the butterfly to experience metamorphosis.

Pin that hole shut, making sure that the exterior and lining pieces of fabric at the opening are roughly folded in at about 1/2″ to make a straight line at the front of the pouch.  The fabric will naturally want to fold at this spot, since the rest of the pouch has a seam there.

Once you’re pinned, we topstitch!  Living on the wild side, we’re topstitching from the inside.  Unconventional, yes, but really?  The only way this will work…

I topstitch 1/4″ from the top of the pouch.  I like to start at the back so that the reinforced (read:  slightly unsightly) part of the stitch isn’t right in front.

16. Insert iPod Touch and enjoy!