Freebie Friday – Crochet Emergency!

I asked my 16 year old son how his day had been.

He said, “Well, I have some bad news.”

He didn’t seem alarmed or agitated so I didn’t panic. In a split second, scenarios of what it could be ran through my head. Bad grade on an assignment, a minor problem with his car, something that happened to one of his friends…

“Is it BIG bad news?” says I.

Son said, “No.”

“Is it small bad news?” I asked.

Son said, “Well, it isn’t small. I lost my crochet iPhone case.”

Phew! Very minor bad news. He asked if it was possible to make him a new one. Was that a real question? Of course I could! In fact, I was doing cartwheels in my head. My son still wants me to make him stuff. Woot woot! But I didn’t show any of that. I kept it real cool.

Instead I said, “I can’t remember making it. What did it look like?”

It was a simple one. He used it to protect his phone in his backpack. I could do that in my sleep. He wanted to know when I could finish it. I asked how badly he wanted it. He said right away. I said I could get it done that night. He seemed surprised and genuinely grateful I would get it done so quickly. Hey, that he would think it was bad news that he lost his crochet phone case meant he needed a new one stat! Never mind that I had just gotten home from a long day and that my hand hurt from working too long on the computer over the weekend. That case was getting done by morning before he went off to school.

A few episodes of Farscape later and his case was done. Crochet emergency (so maybe it wasn’t an emergency) taken care of. 🙂

I like to make his cases thick since he uses them in his backpack. The knit stitch in Tunisian crochet creates a thick fabric just perfect for this use. If you’re thinking, “Tunisian what?” Here is a YouTube video I found that shows how to do the knit stitch. This one teaches how to bind off. This other video is more of an overall tutorial for beginners that shows the simple stitch as well as the knit stitch. There are a bunch of free tutorials out there and I’m sure you can find the perfect one for you if you are interested in this type of crochet.

Since he wanted it quickly I kept it super simple. I made a chain the width of the phone. In this case it was 13 chains. I turned and picked up 12 loops on the forward pass (total of 13 loops on the hook) and did a return pass.

Using the Tunisian knit stitch, I made a as many rows as I needed to go around the phone lengthwise. On the last row, I did a slip stitch bind off (below).

I folded my fabric in half and single crocheted the sides closed (below). I attached yarn to the opening at the top  and single crocheted around. The opening was still a little too big so I made another round in slip stitch. This tightened up the hole a bit.

He said his last case had a button and a closure but I was too tired to finish it so I figured I  would attach that later if he if he really wanted me to.

The next day a friend of his found the case. So now he has two. 🙂