Love in the Afternoon

I haven't been writing lately. My bad. The reason is because, of course, I was busy. But in truth it really does warrant some explanation. Who isn't busy?

As most people know, I am working on my Master's degree in planning. What some don't know is that I am nearly finished. Actually, I just finished my final term of classes. Hence, the "too busy to blog" excuse.  All I have left is my major paper, which I will be working on all summer. 

But that is only the first part. The second is that I am also involved with a few volunteer activities, vaguely planning related (actually, much more than vaguely - they are all about the planning) which require monthly meetings, and some preparation and work outside the meetings.

The best part though, is part three. For the summer, although I wasn't trying initially, I got a full-time contract with the County of Wellington (a good 1 3/4 hours away) as a junior planner. In truth, it is a dream come true. Great experience, great people, a great job. And of course, experience is everything - sure the degree is helpful, but I have noticed that like all jobs, employers are desperately looking for planners with at least SOME municipal planning experience. This job is fulfilling that need. I  have learned so much in only a couple of weeks. Actually, it was power learning in the first four days. I felt like a different person.

Yes, it is rosy. I love this job. However, the downside is that during the week, I have to stay away from my family, leave all the household stuff up to Jason to make the trek down to Guelph for the week where I have been staying with my mom. Jason can do it of course, but let's not kid ourselves; having one parent away during the week is practically the equivalent for the remaining parent of single-parenthood. 

The first week was such bliss, that I hardly had time to miss anyone, but of course, there have been plenty of tears. And my weekends have been shot. Both weekends so far I have been trying to catch up on all the quality time I missed with my kids. We have been baking, cooking, hiking, cleaning, watching movies, hugging, reading....

Then there was my birthday, a great day. I got an amazing gift - a Kobo (if you don't know - where have you been? - it is an eReader). After a week of toting it around loose in my purse, it was time for a solution to protect it. So, I planned to take part of the afternoon last Saturday to make a little case for it. 

I wanted something simple, so I could have some near-instant gratification. I thought of doing something fancy which would allow me be able to read while it was still in the case, but I wasn't sure I needed to bother with something like that. So, I kept it simple. Plus, I wanted to have lots of time to spend with my kids.

No sooner had I finished it, but my son came along and asked if I would make him a case, just the same but for this iPod Touch. Of course I would. We picked out some fabric from my stash. The only thing I needed to ensure for him was that he could charge it while it was still in the case - and he can.

I was fancy enough to make a covered button for my Kobo-case, but I only because nothing I had seemed fitting. Alex's iPod case matched nicely with a button in my button box. The finishing touches - a matching hair elastic for a closure and a ribbon loop for a tag detail and voilà!

This just basically shows the other side - we picked out a different dog for the back. Because of the way the iPod Touch is shaped - the backside is curved and the front is flat - I padded one side and put cardboard in the other.

So now you know what I mean by "love in the afternoon" - sometimes the simplest things are a labour of love. My little guy asked - who could say no, especially when I missed him so much!

The good thing now is that I have at least one item to use as a template for different styles of cases I might make. Previously, when it was discussed in the comments of this blog (a few months ago?) I didn't have an eReader to even use to try out a case on. Sure, I could use the measurements from a bunch of websites which tell you the dimensions of the products, but it just isn't the same.  I would say something like this would take about an hour (or a bit less ) to make, so I would price something like this accordingly if I were making them for others. I think that an hour's labour would keep it reasonably affordable since it only took about a 1/3 of two fat quarters to make.

After trying it out all week - I am very happy with it. It may be useful to have a style like this one from Etsy.com where you could read it in the case like a book, but it would be a bit more labour intensive - but not much more fabric. Next time.