I am so glad I took the day off. I had a doctor’s appointment this morning (all is good), and then I went to the yarn shop to browse. I don’t do much knitting in summer, so I haven’t been to the yarn shop in awhile. They moved the register to make more room, and added some shelves for more yarn. They were also offering harvest latte with pumpkin flavoring – yum-o! It felt good to be back, so I stocked up on a few supplies for new projects.

I’m thinking about making a couple felted oven mitts and potholders, and a scarf and fingerless gloves to match my favorite fleece jacket.

Next on my list is to finish my new laptop sleeve. I made it from a pattern in this book-

But I didn’t follow the pattern exactly.

In my stash I found these great fabrics from Amy Butler’s Midwest Modern collection, so I decided to make the front from a solid piece of fabric instead of patchwork.

It isn’t quite finished yet because I still have to hand sew the lining to the outside, and I’m going to add handles to it, but here it is so far-

Isn’t it cool? I really like how it turned out. This is the first time I have used fusible fleece, and I love it. Highly recommend it. I fused the fleece to both the outside and lining fabrics for added cushion to support my laptop, and I’m happy with the result. It created a lot of extra bulk in the seams, but I trimmed the corners and seam allowances, which helped reduce the lumps and bumps.

Thank goodness I had made the portable cushions from Sew,Mama,Sew’s tutorial series or I would never have figured out how to do the zipper and gusset. The directions for that part in this book were very minimal, so I used the directions from the cushion tutorial and things went together quite smoothly. I will post another picture as soon as I finish the hand sewing and handles.

Now I’m going to enjoy the rest of my day off!