Pen Case

This is a simple pen case, of the kind typically used for fountain pens, designed to be made in a non-fraying material such as garment-weight leather or felt.

Materials

• A piece of leather, leather-like material or thick big enough to fit the two pattern rectangles (see below);

• strong sewing thread, ideally waxed.

Pattern

For each case you need two rectangles, a base and a top, as in the patterns below, plus a strip about as wide as the top and 1 - 2 cm thick for the strap.

base_2.svg

base piece for a 2 pen case;

top_2.svg

top piece for a 2 pen case, with slightly narrower slots;

base_3.svg

base piece for a 3 pen case;

top_3.svg

top piece for a 3 pen case, with slightly wider slots.

the size of the slots will depend on the material used, you may have to experiment a bit; using relatively thin leather imitation the wider slots are more than enough for a Platinum Plaisir.

Instructions

Cut the pieces and mark the holes for sewing as in the pattern.

Starting from the top, sew the central vertical seams with a saddle stitch, backstitch and cutting the thread when you’ve reached the bottom.

Starting again from the top, sew one of the side seams inserting the strap after two stitches, backstitch and cut the thread again when you’ve reached the bottom.

Again from the top, sew the first two stitches of the last seam, adjust the length of the strap so that it just fits, insert it in the seam and continue until the end of the seam, without backstitching.

Continue sewing into the bottom, gathering the excess material from the top into the distance of the base; backstitch and cut the thread.

Tip

depending on the material you’re using, wetting the bottom edge may help in getting a neater gathering.

Note

for symmetry, I’ve backstitched the whole bottom seam and up on the side seam at the same distance as the other vertical seams, but it’s a purely a matter of looks.

Gallery

An older prototype with two slots (and the excess pen that will go into the 3-slots version).