January Poverty - I'm gonna make my own laptop sleeve

Like most doctoral students forced to make a living at teaching while doing research, January is a lean month for me. My institution is notorious for paying staff late. I often wait 3 or more pay periods before I am paid. Those weeks between the last of the Fall term paycheques and the first of the Spring term money are tough. I am sitting here with holes in mismatched socks. The thought of another lunch of Wasa crackers is making me nauseous.

Not much to be done but suffer the slings of the crock-pot and arrows of cable providers intent on re-framing the basic cable package to coincide with confusion about the analog to digital migration. I'm broke. The sort of person I am, I refuse to dip into savings or credit cards to get by during this period. I've made a polite phone call to con-ed and my phone provider to explain my current situation and now I sit and wait.

...so what is a fabulous person to do while flat broke and working like a dog? Well, I fantasize about what I might buy when I have money. Currently, I am fantasizing about the laptop sleeve I need. My fantasies led me to www.etsy.com - a web site dedicated to the sale of homemade items...laptop sleeves included. There, I found these pretty little things






Then I thought "screw this"....I can totally make my own. Here are two websites with free patterns and instructions for lap top sleeve construction. The first lists instructions for a sleeve with handles.

The second provides instructions for an envelope-style bag.

It helps to have a sewing machine, but I have made similar items in the past by hand stitch. The main difference between the two methods, in the case of these sleeves, is really the amount of time you want to invest. That said - I have time. I am broke and losing tv stations.....I can probably pull this together in a night with the scrap fabric I have lying around from other projects.