Scrappy and Useful!

In anticipation of an upcoming trip, I thought of something I wanted to make that would be really useful when I'm traveling.

Like most of you, when I travel these days, I have lots of cords.  Chargers for my phone, iPad, and iPod, and headphone cords, too.  I made a zipper pouch for them to travel in a couple summers ago and I use it constantly, even when the cords are just sitting here at home.

But they still get all tangled up in the zipper pouch!  So I decided to make some cord holders or organizers that would hold each of my cords together and keep them from getting tangled.  

I could have searched for a tutorial, but I decided I had enough of an idea of what I wanted that I could make it up myself.  After the first one was completed, I made a second and took photos as I went along. Here's what I did!

A good size for my cord holders seemed to be about 9 1/2 by 3 inches.  So I cut two pieces of fabric to those dimensions, one for the outside, and one for the inside.  I also cut a piece of fusible interfacing that same size.

I ironed the interfacing to the wrong side of the outer piece, then layered the outer and inner piece right sides together, and sewed them together with a 1/4 inch seam all the way around, leaving an opening about 2 inches wide for turning.  Before turning everything right side out, I clipped the corners.

I always use a knitting needle to poke out the corners and give them a nice point.

                           

I finger pressed the raw edges of the opening together and then pressed the whole thing with my iron before stitching all the way around my piece 1/8 inch from the edge to get a nice finish.

Luckily, I had some stitchable velcro which is about an inch wide, and I cut two pieces to sew onto my cord holder, about 2 inches long.

                  

This is where I kind of "customized" the cord holders to fit the different cord holders I have.  I wanted to be able to wrap the plug end inside the fabric.  To decide where the velcro pieces should go I made a mark with my Frixion pen that would iron out after I was finished stitching.

I did this on both ends of the cord holder, and made sure I had one piece of velcro on each side so they would connect when I wrapped it around the plug and cord.  The finished size of the cord holder is about 9 inches by 2 1/2 inches.

And, voila!  In a really short time, I had three cord holders, and I think they'll work great in my zipper pouch to keep everything in its place!

These are great for scraps, because they use fairly small pieces, and I think they would make the perfect gift for someone you know who travels, a lot, or even just a little!