a) useful
b) inexpensive
c) relevant for many of you Christmas-gift-receivers
and d) made by both of us, so there are a couple different takes on it!
If you're like me or a lot of my friends, you may have gotten a Kindle
The first one I'll run through is made from bought-in-store felt, and the second one (made by Kate) was crafted through a process called 'felting', which requires some know-how of knitting or crocheting but is otherwise pretty simple, too.
Felt Kindle Case
Helpful skills:
- blanket stitching (diagram available here)
Materials needed:
- felt (2 pieces of same or complimentary color)
- embroidery floss (1 or more colors)
- needle (and pins are helpful)
- scissors
- buttons (at least 2)
It also helps to have your Kindle around to measure, but if you're making it for a gift you could look up the measurements online.
Step-by-step:
1. Lay your felt out flat on the table, one on top of the other. I used two different colors for fun, and the outside piece of felt is embossed which gives it some extra oomph, I think.
2. Place the Kindle or e-reader on the felt and eyeball and measurement that will cover it like a pocket, leaving room for a flap. Pin your felt and remove Kindle.
3. Using your needle and embroidery floss, use a buttonhole stitch to sew up the sides of your cover and across the top (which will be the edge of the flap). I used a secondary color for the flap, but you could, using one piece of embroidery floss, stitch around the entire edge (two sides and flap) if you like.
4. Optionally, if you'd like to sew the inner edge of the case, you can stitch shut, too. I kind of liked the option of having a pocket, so I left it as-is.
5. Close the flap over the top and decide where you would like your buttons, which will be how you fasten your case. Thus, one button will be on the flap, and the other will be on the case body, likely toward the middle center.
6. Sew the buttons on and, use an extra piece of embroidery floss to tie on a string. You will use this string to wrap around the buttons when you close up your case.
Annnd enjoy! Wasn't that easy?
Felted Kindle Case
- knitting or crocheting (any stitch)
- felting (read along for instructions)
- Blanket stitching (diagram here)
Materials needed:
- Three skeins of Bernat Felting Yarn (this brand, and this color)
- Size 13 knitting needles or a crochet hook about size K
- Embroidery floss
- Needle
- Embellishments included a vintage button and beads
- Velcro for the enclosure
- Scissors
A note on felting:
Any 100% wool will eventually felt, but if you get the kind specifically for felting it goes a little easier. Felting is one of those crafts with a couple basic steps but the more you do it the more you can tweak things here and there to customize it to your liking and your projects. Your needle or hook size isn't too crucial, but it helps to have stitches a little bit bigger than normal because felting happens due to friction of the fibers, and if you have really tight stitches it may take longer and be really thick. And bigger stitching means a quicker process.
Step-by-step:
1. Knit/crochet your piece: For this project you want to felt your material first, and then cut it to shape and assemble your project after felting is completed. The first step is to knit or crochet your project at least twice the size that you want the finished product (in this case - your Kindle or electronic reader). I've heard that you can felt each piece of your project or felt the entire thing then cut out the pieces later. For example, for our kindle cover, you could felt individually the back, front and then the flap but I did all of it in one giant piece for uniform color (and less sewing afterward!).
2. Preparing your piece for the wash: So with your huge rectangle (I believe mine was about 24 inches in length), you want to make sure the ends are weaved in well so they don't come out in the wash. Now because I do not have a washer, I had the joy (haha) of doing this by hand but I would highly recommend using a top loading machine if at all possible - not only is there a lot of agitation needed, but the hotter the water the better. So I'm going to explain this as if I did use a machine. I personally would put my piece in a netted washer bag or zipped pillow case but it's not totally necessary.
3. Felting: Now's the fun part. Fill your washer up to the top with the hottest water, and if desired, a tiny bit of detergent. If you can, set your washer to the longest agitation cycle and throw your piece in! I would recommend checking your piece after five minutes. It may not look much different at the beginning, but keep checking every five minutes (resetting the washer and making sure it doesn't continue with the spin cycle). After a couple cycles of this it will be getting much smaller, thicker and the stitching will be disappearing. The great thing about felting is that you really can control how small you make your project, which is why you want to keep checking it until it's the size you want. If you think you're close, ring it out and measure it and keep felting until it's there. Remember - you cannot un-felt so it's better to check often or else you'll end up with an ipod cover instead!
4. Drying: So you're at the size you want, drain your washer and turn it off. You can rinse your piece with some cool water and gently ring it out. Since our piece is a rectangle it'll be easy to dry it in the shape we want. You can use a box, or a thick towel to shape your piece on top of, in the exact shape you want it, then pin it there and leave it until it's completely dry. If it dries without being pinned it may not be the shape you want it to be and could get uneven. My finished rectangle was about 17 inches in length (compared to about 24 pre-felted) and 9.5 inches in width.
**There are a LOT of variables in felting (type of yarn, stitch size, your washer or if you're doing it by hand, etc.), so it can be beneficial to do some test felting with squares of knitted/crocheted yarn first.**
5. Assembly: My felted edges were a little too bumpy for my taste so used a rotary cutter and straightened them out (yes you can now cut your felted fabric without it coming apart!). Now because we made one big rectangle, you can fold it into thirds (lengthwise) and sew the bottom two thirds' edges together to make the pouch, and the top third (which was actually about an inch shorter than the other two parts) will be your flap. I chose to cut mine at an angle as you can see in the picture. Folded and sewed, the length goes from 17 inches to about 6 inches tall- but use your own Kindle or reader to fit it more accurately. I used a larger sewing needle and embroidery floss to bind it and used the blanket stitch.
I also used this stitch as decoration on the top flap's edge, but embellish any way you wish! I also used Velcro as the enclosure but you can use almost anything - this project is very customizable.
Lastly, you can get more information on felting here.
No comments:
Post a Comment