K'done: Improvised Nook cover

A little bit of knit love for my baby brother.

 

Pattern: my own improvisation Yarn: Knit One Crochet Too Camelino, in Graphite Needles: 3.75 mm / US 5 Throughout his childhood, my brother never fell in love with books, or even reading in general - when playing video games that required some reading to follow the story line and advance the plot, he would just mash buttons to make those bits go by as quickly as possible, never mind that he was making story-altering decisions. While on vacation this past summer, however, he thought our Nook ebook readers looked interesting - interesting enough that he actually bought one for himself when we stopped in at a Barnes & Noble so my sister could buy herself one. And he read every spare moment during that vacation. Someone Else loaded the device up with novels he thought my brother would enjoy, and finally, a month shy of his 22nd birthday, my brother fell in love with reading. So I decided to knit him a case for his reader for his birthday. I got it done late - his birthday was in early September, and I managed to give it to him last week. Still. Here it is.

 

It was really simple: using a cable cast-on, I cast on 40 stitches, and worked these in garter stitch throughout the whole thing. (I know - a big long thwack of garter stitch. How exciting. Clearly, I love my brother.) To keep the selvedge stitches neat, I slipped the first stitch of each row purlwise with the yarn in front (i.e., exactly where it left off after knitting the last stitch of the previous row and then turning the work), then moved the yarn to the back after the slip. I knit the piece until it was three times the length of the device, then knit an additional three or four inches - never measured, just eyeballed it. Then I bound off (knit 2, pass first k over second, repeat until only one remains, cut yarn and pull tail through) and folded the fabric into a compressed Z and seamed the sides shut, leaving the extra few inches at one end to form a foldover flap. This created two pouches: one that can be closed off with the flap, and one that can't. The non-closing flap serves two purposes. One, it provides an extra layer of squishy fabric - my hope is that this will provide additional padding and protection to the screens of the device. Two, if desired, a piece of cardboard or plastic can be cut to the right size and slipped into the space between the layers, providing a rigid layer. Not too shabby for something I just imagined. Is this what designing is like?

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