Easy Sunglasses (or Glasses) Case

In the middle of packing a holiday case (yes, I'd left it that late) I realised that none of the cases I had were big enough in depth for either of my two favourite pairs on sunglasses. 

So I had to make a new case, pronto. It had to be able to protect my sunglasses in the suitcase, and when out and about, but I didn't want it to be too heavy.

I knocked up this case in about 7 minutes. You could do a much better job in 15, but I didn't have 15 minutes available!

 I used a spare piece of double sided ready quilted denim, and a spare bit of double fold 1" bias tape about 15" long. I cut a shape which allowed for a small flapover. 

To make a similar shape, lay your sunglasses (or glasses) on your fabric, and draw a shape like the above, allowing enough for seam allowances either side. 

Before you cut, check by wrapping around the glasses that it is going to fit, and that you will be able to get them in and out. 

If you need a better idea of measurements, here are the measurements laid on mine. But remember that sunglasses vary in size. This is just to give you a general idea.

First I sewed on the double sided bias tape round the top edge. I first sewed it opened out onto the outside. I didn't make too much effort to do this really neatly because of my time constraint. But you really need to ease it round and fold it on the right angle where the flapover meets folded side. I then pressed and fold it over, and stitched 'in the ditch' on the right side, catching in the tape on the inner side. (I made one little mistake here which caused the making to take 7 minutes rather than 6: I pressed the bias tape with the iron, and caught the inner lining of the fabric, which is not suitable for ironing, so it melted. I had to hand sew a spare bit of the lining back to cover this. You can see this in the picture below. More haste, less speed.)

I would recommend placing and attaching a snap fastening to the flap and top of the centre of the short side before sewing  the side together, planning this carefully to allow for the seam allowance down the open edge. But if you fail to do this, it's not too difficult to do it at the end.

I then folded the whole case right sides together and sewed round the side seam. 

I sewed a curved shape bottom and trimmed the excess off, but you could make it square.  It's easier to turn it the right way out with a curve.

 I oversewed (with a zig zag stitch) the top inch or so of the side seam - I didn't bother to go all the way down. 

I clipped the curve, and finally turned it the right way out, using a wooden spoon handle to push the corner out.

As you may see from the some of the photos, my version didn't have a snap fastener to start with (which would be my preferred closure) as I found I'd run out of the females. (I think I had done some projects with a couple of females on one shoulder front to one male on the shoulder back, hence I had several males left over and just hadn't noticed.) Instead, I hand-sewed on large metal press-studs, marginally slower than hammering in snap fasteners - but works just as well. Later, I was able to replace this with snap fasteners. Here's how I measured for the positioning of the snap fasteners.

I also used the last spare bit of the double-sided quilting, a piece about 3"-4" square, to make an inner protector for the glasses. I rolled folded this over to make a little roll and stitched the ends to hold it as a roll. 

This little piece goes in between the bridge of the frame and the folded ear pieces to try and avoid too much squashing in luggage. But I'm going to lose it sooner or later, so don't bother unless you are goimg to have the sunglasses in a very squahsed case!

So you, too, can throw one of these together in a few minutes, or spend slightly longer making them look more professional, Either way, the case should protect your sunglasses.

Just after I'd finished, an email came through from Melly Sews (I'm on her mailing list.) And it told how to make a glasses case using a piece from a spare metal tape measure. Now, as it happens, I don't have any spare metal tape measures - I use all the ones I've got! And this is for a flattish case, whereas I needed a case for some curved arm glasses which have more depth. So it wouldn't have worked for me even if I'd seen it earlier. But it is an alternative you might like to try.