Mobile Phone Case Design

Inspired by Jane's photo of quinces, I have been looking at the luminousity of the yellow leaves on the trees around me. They almost glow in the dull November daylight.




I can't get a photo which captures the colours, although those give a hint of the effect.

My mobile phone case, looking a bit like a small furtive furry animal:

Pattern: made up as I go along
Yarn: from a scrumble pack by taj yarn, bought at Ally Pally - unknown fibre
Begun: 10th Nov 2006
Finished: 14th Nov
Hooks: Mostly 3.5mm hook, beginning chain 5.5mm hook
Notions: Toggle
Stash reduction: counts as zero balls

Design process:

I had a mental image of how I wanted my mobile phone case to look, and as I crocheted, I added stitches that made the case look right.

I choose light coloured yarns so I could see them at the bottom of my handbag. The fun fur was used so I could find it by feel. They came in a scrumble pack I bought from Taj Yarn at The Knitting and Stitching show in October: the scrumble pack has a variety of different colour-coordinated yarns with different textures weights etc, suitable for free-form and other experimental work.

(Note all terms use British notation: ie double crotchet is US single Crochet.)

My starting chain was slightly longer then the width of my phone and made using a 5.5 mm hook. I always find my chains are quite tight, hence the use of the large hook.

Changing to the smaller hook, I made a double crotchet into each chain except the last one, where I made two, then worked back making double crochets along the starting chain, back to the beginning. On the second round of double crochet, I made two stitches into the two stitches at each end of the piece, and one stitch into all the other ones: this was the base of the case.

I then did three or four rounds, making one double crotchet into each stitch of the preceding row.

At this point I added the fun fur: the fun fur looked finer then the other yarn, so for this round only, I alternated making 1dc into a stitch, then 2dc into the next stitch, then 1dc, then 2dc etc. I then worked two more rounds (three in total) in fun fur, followed by two in the plain yarn. Next round: fun fur, followed by three rounds plain yarn, followed by one of fun fur. After this, I stopped using fun fur. The effect I wanted was dense fur, gradually getting sparser.

I continued in rounds, until the case was two-thirds the length of the phone. I wanted to be able to answer the phone as quickly as possible, after fumbling for it in a bag, hence the pouch finished where the phone buttons started.

For the flap, I worked in straight rows, which were the width of the case plus two stitches. The last stitch of each row was a single chain for the turning chain. When I got to the row at the top of the phone I shaped it very slightly, by making a slip stitch into the last stitch of the row below.

I carried on like this until I'd got to the right place for the buttonhole. The rows were 12 stitches wide, and for the buttonhole I made 4 double chain, 5 chain in the air, and missed 4 stitches, then made 4dc into the last four stitches. On the way back, I made a dc into each stitch in the row below - ie I'd increased by one stitch, 13 in total. Next row, a dc into first 4 stitches, missed a stitch, 3dc into following stitches, missed a stitch and 4dc into following stitches (11 in total). Finally I made another two or three rows, then finished off.

I sewed the toggle into place, and finished off all the ends.

As I haven't done much crotchet, I'm particularly pleased with it. This is the first time I've managed to get an even edge.

I found it very easy to crotchet what I was visualising, much easier then with knitting. Knitting produces a flat fabric, but with crotchet you can make three dimensional objects.