Case in Point

Today was the beginning of the big Christmas sewing push.  In other words, I spent the morning ironing all the fabric for the novelty pillowcases that I always "gift" to my extended family and then cutting out the various components.  Tomorrow my friend is coming over with her sewing machine and I'll have my machine set up and we'll spend the day doing our Christmas sewing.  I plan to have all my pillowcases finished by tomorrow evening.  That's the plan!

In case you're wondering what pattern I follow, I use one from an organization called Pillows of Love.  They help women and children in crisis.  Some years back, our church's women's ministry group made a bunch of pillowcases for this group and I kept the pattern and have been using it ever since.  Here is a link to the pattern, which is available for free.  If you go to their website to check it out, read about their work.  They are a great organization.

In the meantime, my new case for my Kindle Fire arrived today.  It is a leather cover made by Marware.  You can read all the particulars on Amazon's site here.  When I first opened it up and tried to put the Fire into it, I really struggled to get it into the corner grippers.  I finally manhandled it into it and it's securely in there.  Of course, after I had put all that effort into it, I discovered the simple instructions (pictures only) which had fallen out of the box when I opened it and slid to the side that showed you had to SLIDE the one side into the right-hand top and bottom grips and then press the other side down into the grips.  Oh, boy!

The case is kept closed by an elastic strap that goes over the front of the case.  When the case is open, it looks like this.  At first I thought, "What in the world is with that left side of the case?"  OK, so I looked at the instructions again.  The honeycombed strips come into play when you use the case as a stand for the Fire.  The instructions never mentioned (or showed) what the thick elastic band was for but I figured it out anyway.

 I used to sing in our church choir after all.  Our choir folders have something similar.  In this case, you can fold the left side back and secure it with the thin elastic strap, and then slide your hand under the thick strap to hold your Kindle Fire.  I would imagine if you wanted to show something to another person, this feature would also come in handy, enabling you to one-handedly hold the Fire pointed toward the person while you point or gesture at the screen with your other hand.

Back to that "stand" feature.  If you want to use your case as a stand, you push the left side of your fire out of the grips and then pull it forward along the left side of your case either up to the first honeycomb strip or the second, depending on how much of an angle you want for your viewing.  It works ok if you want to view things from the horizontal position but I didn't see any way to use it as a stand in a vertical position.  There also isn't a lot of flexibility in the viewing angles offered.  It's pretty much the two options.  But I found one that worked for me.

Also, the first two times that I popped the left side of my Fire out of the case to put it into the stand position, it was rather stiff and tight to do this but I noticed that it is getting easier so I think it was just because it was brand new.

You can see in this picture how the case is designed to fold in the back when you adjust it to use as a stand. Your elastic strap just sits in the back while it is used in this manner.

As far as access to controls on the top and bottom of the Kindle Fire, the case is designed to give you full access.  This shows the bottom of the Fire in the case.  As you can see, it's no problem to get to the on/off buttom, the audio jack, or the charging slot.  The top of the case is similar, leaving the speaker unobstructed.

I'm pleased with the case.  The Kindle feels very protected in it.  It's a smart-looking case and sturdy.  My only criticism would be the lack of versatility in the viewing angles you can set when using it as a stand.