One of my/ our Christmas presents this year was this:

Oh yes, a book of super cool geek chic craft projects.

I had debated making an iPod case for mine…. But put it off, then left it on a plane on the way to Seattle. Sad times. Goodbye Blackie. Thankfully our travel insurance covered most of the cost of my stupidity… and shiny new iPod… means shiny iPod case.

It also presented me with the ideal opportunity to use my homemade felt (wet felted under the expert guidance of my lovely Rivka), for that extra special individual touch.

Misshapen and slightly thicker than machine made felt, but made with my own fair hands!

It did however, mean that I had to adapt the pattern slightly, as the dimensions of the piece were not big enough to make the case.

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iPod case instructions

As mentioned, ny piece of felt that I wanted to use for the front of the case, wasn’t big enough to work in the way described, it was also thicker than my machined felt… my solution was to make it as a separate front and back, joined together by blanket stitch at the seams.

I also wanted use use Silver as my element, and the templates provided were for Silicon, Einsteinium, and Krypton:

…so I had to adapt this for my case:

I then traced this onto some greaseproof paper (the lazy persons tracing paper):

And used this template to cut out my felt:

For the back of the case, I freestyled some silver twinkly stars:

Then tacked the two pieces together, ready to be sewn to the front:

In the absence of a fancy iron on transfer pen/ pencil, I decided to tack the paper template to my top piece of felt, and sew the details through the paper… The atomic number, name, and molecular weight were embroidered using 2 strands of floss in split stitch, the symbol using 3 strands and stem stitch.

Then I removed the paper (slightly fiddly), just leaving the design:

…. time to remember how to blanket stitch. Blanket stitch the back pieces together at the top, and the front piece to the lining using 3 strands of floss. Then blanket stitch the front and the back together at the sides and bottom….and done!

Front.

Back.

Done! My blanket stitch could do with a little practice, but it fits!