Three DS Cases

On Monday I posted about a DS Case prototype that I made for myself as preparation for Christmas presents for my three English students. As the presents were all the same, I wanted to personalize them somehow (particularly since two of the girls are sisters). Each of them like different cartoon characters, which are all quite popular, so I decided to use character fabric for the outside and the same fabric for all of them as the lining.

The youngest likes Cinnamaroll, her sister likes Rilakuma, and her friend likes Pokemon. Finding these fabrics was simple enough, but finding one for the lining that looked cute with all of these was a bit of a challenge. I settled on polka dots because I love polka dots!

With these fabrics I got to cutting. This is where my deviations from the original tutorial started. I didn't particularly care for the bigger pocket above the game pockets. I didn't really find it necessary and I did not like that I wasn't able to just fold the DD up tightly when closing the case. I ended up making the final cases 16 inches length, as opposed to 19.

That means that in preparing the pockets, I had one less per case to do - wahoo!! I started with the youngest girl's case. I figured I would do hers to ensure my changes worked and then do the last two assembly line style.

As per the tutorial, I started with the pockets. In the original, I found the pockets to be really snug, so I ended up sewing the pocket lines 1.7cm apart from one another. This gave me very little on the sides for my seam, but I figured it would be fine.

As per the case I made for myself, I quilted the lining for the girls' cases - I liked the extra padding it gave to the case. Then I attached the pockets to the lining. I did the main DS pocket in the outside fabric simply because I thought a bit of contrast would be cute. The tutorial says to make this pocket slightly wider than the case itself so you have more wiggle room for the DS, but I forgot to do this on the original and it was snug, but fine. This also meant that I didn't need the hair tie to keep the DS in the case.

Once the lining and pockets were ready, I sewed them to the main fabric with the littlest seam possible. This was a bit of work, but I wanted to make sure the games would all fit.

Then I flipped and top-stitched around, but I didn't go all the way to the bottom of the DS pocket, I went just above it so as to not take any space away from an already tight pocket. I also sewed two more lines to guide the folding.

Since the hair tie at the top of the bag was thick to sew over and my machine is not great, I was left with a bit of a mess.

 

Luckily I'd bought super cute bow buttons originally intended for the DS pocket, but since I didn't need it in the end, I sewed the other button to the top to cover the mess and used the bow button to close the case.

Finally I sewed a button on to close the bag. Eeeek!! So cute! Then I had to do the other two.

Finally they were all done, we had a Christmas party, and the girls opened their gifts. They were all so stoked. Two of them have a 3DS and the other has a DS similar to mine. I told the girls that I think the case should work for all of their DSes, but if not I'll make them new ones. In unison, they screamed, "Nooooo!!!" The older sister said she'd find a different use for the case if it didn't fit. What sweethearts.