nook color | Dye-abolical Designs

Pondering the construction of a reader cover, part 1

30 01 2011

Dear bloggy friends,

I know I’m not putting much on here… I admit that my blog has been ignored more often than not. If you’d like to follow me on facebook, please send me a friend request here and mention the blog, o.k.?

On to the post……

I purchased my sister-in-law’s nook color a while back, as she was not happy with it.

Secretly, I was hoping to convert it into an android tablet, but right now am happy with it just the way it is. I finished “Water for Elephants”, and am working on “I am Number Four” right now.

She had purchased a silicone cover for it when she bought it. It works fine, but I take issue with it as cat hair sticks to it like crazy, it won’t offer any protection if the reader is dropped, and it feels sticky in my hand when holding it. Being ever the seamstress, I have embarked on a journey of trying to find a pattern to use for making a cover.

I’ve found quite a few designs online, none of them have the exact specs I’m trying to meet. I’m wanting the following:

something I can hold to read,
protect the unit if dropped, and
wrap around the reader to buffer dings and scratches.

Here are a few I’ve located:

Chica and Jo’s custom kindle cover case seems to offer quite a bit of protection, but the pocket design isn’t going to work with a nook color, as we have a full screen.

Padded case for your kindle might help, but it would need to have some more sturdy materials used to help protect the reader, and I’d have to remove my reader to use it.

Here is a pattern from an etsy seller that you can purchase, that shows promise… with modifications by adding a flap and using sturdier materials.

Cookcraftgrow has a cover she designed and put directions for online. I like it, especially the snap around the lower left corner! But… again I’m concerned about the dropping of my lovely little device.

So, I’ve been exhaustive in my quest to find something to fulfill my “sturdier materials” mantra above… After dropping a number of things on my tile floor to test (being ever the scientist), I’ve come up with a couple options – chipboard, as found in binder covers, and coroplast (corrugated plastic, which looks like colored cardboard, but is extruded plastic – it comes in many varying thicknesses). And it just happens that I have a whole bunch of coroplast lying around this house.

Coroplast was VERY popular for making the large elections signs that were used in last November’s elections, and is also used in most of the signage in front of local gas stations for beer and soda. I happen to have the following in my garage:

2 large 4’X8′ election signs from a person who lost a local election (5 mm thick)
2 smaller sheets my dad sent back with us from our visit to KS (2 mm thick)

We’ve been collecting it to make the Girly some model remote control (r/c) airplanes as it will weather her crashes and bumps at high impact – yes, it is THAT strong! There are websites for building planes and trainers from it if you know where to look on the internet… She really, really wants a flying pizza box! I figured it was perfect medium for building this cover.

My first draft us not quite what I wanted… Still trying to work out the design before posting part 2. In the meantime, here are pictures of attempt #1…. I used Beatles Yellow Submarine Fabric, fusible fleece, 2 mm coroplast in both covers(which I found I could sew through!), a snap for holding the corner of the nook, and two kinds of elastic.