iPod Touch Felted Cozy

Felting the yarn adds an extra thickness to this cozy which will help keep your iPod Touch protected from miscellaneous scratches.

You will need:
Approximately 80 yards of wool. I used tapestry wool, which is a worsted weight. I used approximately 30 yards of light green, 40 yards of dark green, and 10 yards of peach (not counting what I used to swatch).
I used size 7 needles
Unless you enjoy doing math longhand, then you will also need a calculator.
Tapestry needle
You will eventually need a button - but worry about that later.

Swatching is ABSOLUTELY essential to make this bag. So is middle school math (or high school math, depending on how good your school district was). So yes, remember when you thought, "When will I ever actually use this stuff?" Well, right now, when you have an iPod Touch that needs a felted bag.

Make a good sized swatch, at least five inches by five inches. It seems silly as you've nearly made it the size of the iPod, but trust me on this one.

Lay the swatch down on a flat surface and without stretching it out, write this information down.

Your gauge: _______ stitches per inch
Your swatch height (sh): _______ inches
Your swatch width (sw): _______ inches


Now felt your swatch. I stuck it in with a load of sheets in the washer which I washed on hot and dried on high heat.

Measure the felted swatch.

Your felted height (fh): _______ inches
Your felted width (fw): _______ inches


You now have to figure out what percentage your swatch shrank while felting.

Take your felted width (fw) and divide it by your swatch width (sw). You should get some number between .45 and .95; write that number down: ______

My felted width was 4.7 inches and my swatch width was 5.75 inches, so my answer was .82
This means that my felted swatch width was 82% of the original.
Now you write yours down: My felted width was _____% of the original.

Take your felted height (fh) and divide it by your swatch height (sh). Write that number down: ______

My felted height was 3.4 inches and my swatch height was 5 inches, so my answer was .68
This means that my felted swatch height was 68% of the original.
Now you write yours down: My felted height was _____% of the original.

Forget about your swatch now. All that matters is the percentage shrinkage you wrote down. The original widths and heights and felted widths and heights mean nothing... because now it is time to figure out what size to make your cozy, so that it will shrink to the correct size.

Width:
Type in 5.75 and DIVIDE it by the percentage difference in width (the number you got between .45 and .95). Make sure you are doing width, not height. You should get a number between 13 and 5.8. Write it down: ______ inches. This will be the circumference of your bag before you felt it.
I took 5.75 and divided it by .82 so my circumference came to 7 inches.

Take the circumference of your bag before you felt it and MULTIPLY it times your original gauge of your swatch: ______. Round it off to the nearest whole number, and this how many stitches you will cast on.

Height:
Type in 4.75 and DIVIDE it by the percentage difference in height. Write it down: ______ inches. This will be the height of your bag before your felt it.
I took 4.75 and divided it by .68 so my height also came to 7 inches.


Cast on, leaving a long tail hanging. Spread your stitches evenly among 3 dpns.
Knit until tube is the correct height.
My pattern: 3 rows light green, 2 rows dark green, 1 row peach, 2 rows dark green, repeat
Bind off half your number of stitches. Move remaining stitches onto one needle.
Knit to the end; turn needle around (to wrong side) and
Purl to the end
K1, ssk, knit until you are 3 stitches from the end. k2tog, k1
Repeat the last two rows until you have three stitches left.
Cut yarn, leaving a 6 inch tail. Thread yarn through last three stitches and pull taught.
Cut a length of yarn 12 inches long.
With the tapestry needle, thread the 12 inch yarn through the knitting above the last stitch and let it hang evenly.
Braid the three hanging yarns until your braid is approximately 2 inches long.
Take the three loose ends and weave them up into the knitting, leaving the braided end to form a loop. Secure ends.
Use long tail left from cast-on and sew up base of tube with tapestry needle.
Felt bag in the same manner in which you felted your swatch.
Find a button to match the size of your button loop, now that it has felted. Make sure you choose a FLAT button (one with holes in it), NOT a button with a raised loop in the back, as it may scratch your iPod.
Sew button onto front of bag.



All Finished!