Sunday 27 May 2012

Felt Retro Game Mobile Cover

I love video games! So I made this mobile cover to keep my phone toasty and to make me think I've gone back in time to 1998 every time I get my phone out.



Here's how I made it, it's pretty quick to do.

What you need:
Square Felt pieces (black for area behind screen and button details, grey for screen, any colour of your choice for overall console)
Chalk
Scissors
Thread (black, grey and matching colour to your console)
Sewing needle

How to do it:

Firstly, I placed the phone on the felt square and drew around it with chalk. It's best to place the phone as a template near an outer edge of the felt square aligned to the bottom edge, this means you can fold the felt over and this eliminates one side edge that you will need to sew. Remember to give about 2cm seam allowance from the very edges of the felt to the phone template you have drawn.

Flip the felt over so that the chalk template is on the outside. Fold the felt over to match the position of drawn template so you have created both sides to the cover. Pin the felt together and trim any excess on one of the sides and the top(there will most likely be excess).

Sew along the bottom and the pinned side of the felt using matching thread to your felt. Running stitch will be fine for this. Leave the top edge open (I know that's pretty obvious but I just thought I'd say it anyway!)
Once the edges are sewn, turn the cover inside out. This will be the complete cover body.
Now for the detail. My design is very simplistic, though I can't give precise measurements as every phone shape is different. The basic template is this:

Black felt - Black square for behind the screen. This will really be slightly more rectangular than square. Use your cover body as a guide, the black square should stretch across most of the width of the cover, and should cover just less than half the length. The edges should be slightly rounded.

Grey felt - Grey square for the screen. Slightly smaller, slightly rectangular, with straight edges. To be placed on top of the black rounded square/rectangle in the center and sewn on using grey thread. It is best to sew the grey screen onto the black rectangle before you sew the black rectangle to the cover for ease of placement.

Black felt - Two small circles for "A" and "B" buttons. When sewn to the cover use black thread and place at a slight diagonal from each other.

Black felt - Also use black felt to make the cross shaped button. I made two thin rectangles, laid and sewed them one on top of the other to make the cross. Sew this to the left of the "A" and "B" buttons on the cover using black thread.
Et voila!

Here's a lovely young man playing a related tune so you can have some musical accompaniment to this project. I couldn't stop whistling this tune all the while I was making this!