"Shades" Sunglasses Case

This is a pattern that I created for Jenny Garland's pattern design craft challenge. I wanted to come up with something that would be easy for someone to re-create, low cost, and could be adapted for either females or males and even kids to make and use (We will probably use brown and tan to make to a case for my son's Dad for Father's Day). It holds a pair of sunglasses and has another compartment hidey hole to put anything else you would like in it (tissues, gum, a comb, a few dollars, etc.) but not scratch the sunglasses.

This is the first time I have ever designed a pattern for someone else to make and if you have any questions or if I need to clear any thing up, please let me know.

Items used for this project:

• 1 piece of black felt for the outside (you could choose any color you like).
• 1 piece of light pink felt for the inside and trim (you could choose any color you like)
• Scissors
• Tissue paper to draw the pattern on to (I used yellow - optional if you printed off the pieces off a printer - you could just use the printer paper)
• Straight pins to pin the pattern to the felt
• Sewing machine (if you don't have one you could use a hot glue gun to put together)
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks (if you don't have one of these but have a sewing machine, you could sew the entire thing)
• Hand stitch needle and thimble (you could hand stitch the entire thing if you don't have sewing machine or glue gun - this would be a better option for grade school kids to try to made on their own).
• Black thread (to match the outside color - you could use contrasting thread or if you just glue the the entire thing, thread would be optional).
• Clear tape to tape over the "Shades" lettering and the sunglasses to stablize for cutting
• Black fabric paint (to color in the lens on the shades instead of cutting them out)
• 1 set velcro closure (I used the self-stick, but still used a glue gun to attach them - you can get several sets from the Dollar Store or craft stores).

Here is the pattern. As don't have a scanner to make it to scale, I have posted the piece individually and you could get them to scale using a the Paint program that is on most computers under Accessories, or copy and pasting into a Word program.

This piece is the main pattern piece - cut two of the main color and 1 of the contrast color and one of the main color (disregard the instructions on the pattern below -I cut 2 black and 1 pink and ended up with an extra black piece). Made small cut on the contrast (pink) piece on each corner where the dotted line).

The pieces are 10 inches wide and 4 1/4 inches tall.

This is the front of the case. You are only going to need to cut 1 of these in the main fabric color. (I cut 1 black). It is 8 inches wide and 4 1/4 inches tall.

This is for the "Shades" lettering - it is 5 inches wide and 1 1/4 inches tall in contrast color (I used pink).

The lettering for "SHADES" is font CENTURTY GOTHIC and the size is 86 (as there is no drop down for this - you type in 86 in the font box) you could just type this in a notepad or word program and print it off instead of trying to copy this from the picture below.

Here is the pattern for the sunglasses. It is 3 inches wide and 1 1/2 inches tall and cut out in the contrast color (I used pink).

Instead of cutting out the center for lens of the glasses, you could use fabric paint to color it in. I originally tried putting a sequin in the middle, but would not recommend doing that as it made it look like a burlesque bra (although I do suppose you could adapt the case for pasties holder if you are a burlesque dancer or have a person on your Christmas last that is).

This is what the pieces looked like cut out.

On the Shades lettering and the sunglasses, I stablized the paper with clear tape to make it easier to cut out so it wouldn't rip or tear. I used craft scissors on these pieces instead of my fabric scissors and I didn't want to dull the fabric scissors, but that is a personal choice.

Cutting out the "Shades" lettering can be tricky -grade school children would need assistance with this and may need to use smaller scissors if you have them. To cut out the center of the A and the D I folded the felt slightly then made a small cut in the center, then put the tip of the scissors through the hold and carefully snipped around the edges. This is what it looked like when I was done.

Unpin the felt from the tissue the put the main full felt piece (black) on the bottom, put the contrast piece (pink) on top of it, then cut the contrast piece where you have made the snips on each side and put it slightly over the edge of the black fabric, then put the shorter body top piece (black) on top of the pink, then pin the edges and sew the bottom edge edges all the way around, then the top edge all the way around (if you are going to use hot glue, you would want to glue each layer separately).

In this photo the top of the case is to the left and the bottom on the right.

For the "SHADES" lettering and the velcro closure, I used hot glue. Before gluing, lay out the letters and the closure to see where you want to position them, then attach glue to the back and glue each piece down one by one.

For the sunglasses, position this on the top where you want to then apply hot glue to the back of the glasses then glue it down and use the black fabric paint to color in the lens of the shades.

If you like what you see, please take a minute to vote for this project at Jenny Garland http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a010535924717970b01156fbeff7b970c

If anyone does make this, I would love to see your creation/interpretation!

Happy crafting!