Fabric Envelope

For my second assignment in my HCDE451 class, we were asked to construct a soft good. I decided to create an envelope out of some soft fabric I found at Joann’s. I found a tutorial article online that detailed how to create an envelope with a button that can hold items and sketched out what I wanted my envelope to look like.

Sketches of my fabric envelope

To make a successful fabric envelope, I first decided to create a prototype as a test piece for when I inevitably made mistakes. I first measured out my fabric — one canvas-like material for the inside lining, and one soft fabric with patterned hearts — before sewing the two fabrics together. I decided to use the patterned fabric and the canvas material inside of the muslin fabric because I found the muslin fabric too thin and wanted this prototype to be as realistic as possible.

Prototype

Photos of my first prototype — measuring out the two fabrics and sewing the pieces together

To create the envelope, I folded the fabric in two and then sewed along the sides to close it. I sewed a snap-and-close button on my first prototype.

My first prototype of my envelope.

Design

My first prototype was a fabric envelope. It had a snap-and-close so that users could open and close the envelope easily. The envelope could easily fit my lip gloss, lip balm, and keys. The inside of the envelope was lined with a canvas-like fabric (similar to a rice bag fabric), providing the envelope with a sturdy infrastructure.

What worked well with the first iteration:

• It looks and acts like an envelope. It was pretty successful and there are no major flaws. I sewed all the sides shut correctly and it opens and closes smoothly.
• The buttons line up correctly. I sewed one of the buttons on the wrong way at first and had to un-sew and re-sew it on correctly but it works.
• It’s sturdy. Lining the envelope with the canvas-like material was a good idea and the envelope is pretty sturdy.

What needed improvement with the first iteration:

• When sewing the two fabrics together, I didn’t sew close enough to the edge or even enough, resulting in the sides being uneven and the front envelope fabric being smaller than the back envelope fabric.
• The color of the thread changes. I didn’t like the dark thread on the pattern so as you can see from the inside envelope photo, I switched out the dark thread with gold thread partway through — resulting in an odd thread color switch.
• The lining of the canvas fabric frayed on the inside of the envlope. When I cut the canvas fabric, I didn’t realize the frayed edge of the fabric would be seen on the inside of my envelope or affect it.

How it influenced my second iteration:

• When cutting out the two fabrics, I cut out a little extra fabric to make the front and back pieces of the envelope longer and I sewed the two fabrics together closer to the edges so the front and back pieces would be more even.
• Instead of using a snap-and-close button, I decided to use a traditional button that I would hand sew on. I wanted to use a bigger button so that it would suit a bigger envelope better.
• I cut out the canvas fabric without using the edge of the fabric. This allowed me to use non-frayed canvas fabric for the lining of my envelope.
• I used a light pink color for the stitching instead of a dark brown so the stitches are much less visible.

Final Prototype:

Final prototype of my fabric envelope

Analysis

My final prototype worked pretty well. It was larger than my original prototype and my sister could hold her phone as well as her lip gloss, lip balm, and keys. All the parts were sewed on correctly and there were no major flaws. The sturdy canvas lining on the inside of the fabric provided feasibility as it helped make my envelope extra strong. The pale pink thread used covered the stitches very well, providing the envelope with a clean, sleek look.

As I uncovered in user testing with my sister, one area of my envelope that needed improvement was my button. Since I didn’t use the same button type as my original prototype, this was my first time sewing on a typical button. I didn’t realize you were supped to sew the area around the button hole before cutting out the hole to keep the hole from stretching. Although I tried to sew the area on the button hole after creating the hole, I was unsuccessful. As a result, some small threads from the fabric get snagged from I try to push the button through the button hole and the hole may expand some time in the future. This may affect the usability of my envelope as the hole may become too big for the button, causing the button to be slip in and out.