Here's me, trying to save money again!

Okay.  My husband has had a guitar and decided he wanted to take a class up on campus.  I scavenged DI for a guitar case for days with no luck.  I couldn't afford a hard case from the music store.  SO, I did what any self respecting poor college student wife would do and I MADE ONE MYSELF!  What?! You can DO that?  Yeah....you can do just about anything if you are desperate enough.

So how did I do it?

1) I took 10 dollars and went to the DI
2) I got one of those ugly vinyl tablecloths in the "as is" section. Ya know, they have that fuzzy white stuff on the back?  I had to make sure it was big enough to fold in half and still trace a guitar on it.
3) I got some fabric by the curtains and blankets.  It wasn't much prettier than the sunny flowery vinyl table cloth, but a little more manly.  This can be any fabric big enough to trace the guitar twice, plus a little extra for straps and a pocket. 

4) Now I needed something for a zipper, and it needed to be long enough for a guitar to fit in easily.  I scored a duffel bag with those compression zipper things.  I ripped that sucker right out and it was 48 inches long!  I was also able to use the woven straps to anchor my straps to the case.  YAY! I had more than half a duffel bag left over, so I harvested the zippers for later(or flowers :) and used the canvas-ish body to back some baby bibs. 

Ok. So I took my fabric and my table cloth and traced the guitar.  I added 3 1/2  inches to accommodate for the width of the guitar body and for seams and cut out two sets of the guitar: front and back of both the table cloth and the fabric.  If you are braver than me you can just add 1 inch to the traced guitar and then put a strip of fabric between the sides that is equal to the height of your guitar(plus seam allowances).

Once everything was cut out I sewed one table cloth piece to one fabric piece: white fuzzy side out, then did the same with the other side.  I didn't sew them wrong sides together and turn or anything, because I would be sewing it to the other side anyway.  Once you have two individual sides, sew on a pocket to the front(if you want) and straps to the back.  I did mine like backpack straps and used the straps from the duffel back to make them good and sturdy. 

Next I sewed my two sides of the case together(wrong sides together this time) except where I wanted the zipper to be.  Since mine was going to be a backpack type case I put the zipper on the side instead of the bottom, so the weight of the guitar wasn't sitting all on the zipper.  Once I had the other seams done, I sewed in the zipper.  I don't really feel qualified explaining that process, I had to go get help.  But there are tutorials on YouTube.

This is how I did the pocket:
I traced a music book onto the fold of my fabric.  I added a little wiggle room, and then I added enough room on the back part to make a flap to fold over and button down.  I sewed up the sides(wrong side together), flipped it right side out, and hemmed the flap and put a button hole in it.  Then I sewed it on to the case.  I only sewed the bottom and sides, making 2 pockets.  The front one was the one with the flap.
And here it is!

Wow. That's actually a horrid picture. BUT I'm too lazy to fix it today and I need to get off the couch and get something done.  So, there ya go!