My daughter is off to secondary school in just a few days, and so we started hunting around the shops for a new wallet. There wasn't anything quite right, and I then saw Vicky Myer's 5 Wallet Tutorials. Why not have a go at making one?
My daughter was very specific about what she needed: a pocket for her phone, a space for her bus pass, and somewhere for a tiny bit of cash for emergencies and her door key. They have to hand these things in every day, so it does seem a good idea to have one wallet for everything.
The wallet tutorials, although all excellent, had lots of pockets for cards, and as we didn't need this, I thought I would just go for it and make up my own design. So with a few mistakes along the way, she now has a bespoke Big School Wallet.
Like Vicky, I do like the idea of recycling fabric, so we used a pair of old denim shorts, and a cotton fabric you may have seen before. The zip pocket for change and the phone pocket were stitched onto the lining piece. I then made the curved pocket flap and rouleau loop and tacked these in place. The lining and blue denim outer piece, with thick interlining piece, were then sewn together inside out, leaving a hole, so the whole thing can be turned out. A few buttons and poppers and I was done. I did top stitch carefully, but didn't do a lot of measuring, so there are a few bits that are wonky. I may have another go at making another one with a bit more precision. It has inspired me a bit for my small squares of thick fabric that I wrote about here, but still have done nothing with. So off to Big School ...
I have been working all week on a pattern for a phone cosy. It is still a WIP, and is proving more difficult than I had imagined. I don't usually post until I have finished a pattern, but I am fairly confident I will get there with this one eventually.
My first step was to knit a plain phone cosy for my own phone, which is proving very useful. I watched one of my work colleagues
drop her phone and crack the screen yesterday. So this seems a great idea to
protect your phone from damage or scratches from keys and other things in your bag. Fine, but it is not very exciting.
My son is crazy for a game called Minecraft, and I thought this might be a good idea. Even quite small children at my school talk about Minecraft. As computer games go it is one I don't mind too much, as to me it seems a little like a 3-D screen version of lego. I should admit though I have played it, just looked over my son's shoulder from time to time. He seems to spend a lot of time building - very complex castles and airships etc. Some of the fun then seems to involved blowing them up afterwards. Not so great, but the building process does seem good to me. And a creeper, if you didn't know, is one of the more spooky characters in Minecraft.
Anyway I digress a bit from the knitting. I decided to knit him a creeper phone cosy. My first version had to be binned, as I tried to use 8 different shades of green. Much too complicated, and I just ended up with a tangle of wool. So this next version only has 4 colours. It is still not quite right, as a creeper's face should be square, but he is using it for his phone.
I then worked out how to make the creeper square, and think it is going to work out best to have a row of small creepers as they seem to keep their shape better. It is still quite confusing working with 4 strands, and I have found the best way not to get in a complete tangle is to work out exactly how much of the green shades of wool the knitter needs and cut this off before you start, and just work with these bits of wool.
So here is my first square creeper, and a row of some even smaller ones.
But phones come in different sizes, so I still have to decided what size or sizes I am going to design for. Just for once for this pattern I think I am going to have to be really accurate about gauge, and tension, and even perhaps recommend a wool. Nobody minds too much the size of a minibeast, but a phone cosy needs to fit.
