Aurifil Artisan Challenge :: Preston Laptop Case

As a new Aurifil Artisan, I wanted to jump in and join in the first challenge, which was to create a project using our welcome pack. I'd been wanting to try Sotak Handmade's new pattern for a laptop case, so I decided to combine the two. Svetlana's pattern offers four case sizes, and wouldn't you know, mine didn't quite fit the large one, but was close. So I used the handy dandy formula provided in the pattern to adapt the measurements so they were custom for the case I needed. 

The fabrics I used were a pair I had stashed a few years ago, but I couldn't remember why they'd been purchased and kept together all this time. No worries, I liked them for this project, they coordinated with the purse zipper I wanted to use, so I went ahead and cut into them. For the exterior, I used Desert Wilderness by Boccaccini Meadows for FIGO, and for the lining, a print by Rae Ritchie for Dear Stella. The pattern also used foam interfacing, and I had some Soft and Stable by Annie on hand, which worked perfectly. I liked that the case was padded a bit to protect my laptop.

For piecing, I used an Aurifil 50wt I already had on hand - #2021 [Natural White], but for quilting the exterior bag panels, I tried a 28wt #5011 [Rope Beige] from my welcome pack and loved it. The grid quilting is a little more pronounced than with my normal 50wt, and just sewed really smoothly. As suggested in the Aurifil booklet that came with my pack, I used 50wt in the bobbin and it worked like a charm.

I made a couple of small tweaks to the pattern by adding some leather accents - first at the base of the handles, and also as a zipper tab. All were made from leather scraps and I actually used a different scrap for the zipper tab, as it was thinner, and more easily wrapped around the end of the zipper. For all the leather bits, though, I used Aurifil Forty3 40wt #2360 [Chocolate], which came as a cone in my kit. 50wt was suggested for use in the bobbin for Forty3 as well, and I used #2372 [Dark Antique Gold], which to my eye, is a nice medium-dark brown. 

The construction of the case was really straight-forward, and I'm happy to say my laptop fit in it perfectly. In hindsight, I wish I'd left the zipper just a tad longer. I guess I didn't adjust it per my custom case dimensions. But thankfully it still works fine, just aesthetically it might have been nicer a bit longer. 

It was fun to use some new-to-me threads, and I anticipate adding more 28wt to my collection for future quilting, as I really like the look of it. Even though I only used two threads from my Aurifil Artisan pack, it was good to get more familiar with the 28wt and Forty3 and learn what to pair them with for bobbins. And, of course, it was nice to have the new threads work so well with what I already had on hand. I definitely look forward to more thread explorations.