Friday at last on my first working week after Christmas. The weekend can’t come fast enough! I had some stitch markers to show you today, but I forgot to photograph them, so they’ll have to wait for next week. One of my biggest challenges this week, is trying to get through my Google Reader! I had over 500 things on it because I hadn’t read any over Christmas. I knocked off quite a few that I normally skim through, but I’ve been stuck at around 250 this week - it seems like the more I read, the more everyone blogs! So that’s one of my challenges this weekend, try to empty my reader and get back around everyone’s blogs and comment!

The next thing I have to show you is very geeky! I play a game called World of Warcraft, on the side of the Alliance. There’s quite a few WoW patterns on Ravelry, but most of them are for the Horde, the opposing faction. The only Alliance pattern I found was this pair of gloves, but they are missing the lion’s mane, and the eyes are a little hard to make out (they’re the loopy bits at the top). The pattern on the gloves is cute, but it’s also too big for my phone cover, and I really wanted the mane on my lion.

So with a little help from my husband, we turned the Alliance symbol into a knitting chart, and I made it into a phone cosy! The official colours for it are blue and gold, but since I didn’t have either colour, but I did have the left over yarn from my Snowbaby Hat, that’s what I used. The pattern is a little too wide for the front of my phone so it wraps around the sides to the back as well. I’m actually really happy with it. One little problem I did have though, is I think I pulled my floats and wraps a little tight across the back.

Once I had the chart, I mostly made the rest up as I went along! I started by casting on with Judy Becker’s Magic Cast On, and it is awesome! It’s really for toe down socks, but it worked perfectly for this and it’s so smooth! I love it! I did a few increases at each side over a few rows, then started knitting the pattern. I did have to rip it all out and start again a few times, once because I didn’t do enough increases and a second time because I started the pattern a little too late and it wouldn’t all fit on.

Once I had completed the pattern I did a round of brown and then started 2x2 rib. I had an odd number of stitches, so I finished with one purl stitch, but it isn’t really noticeable and it’s on the back anyway. I did a decrease row at the top, decreasing four times, then bound off in patter, using a basic bind off and it was done. I was going to use a stretchy bind off, but it actually made the top too loose and the basic bind off works fine. And there we have it - a geeky Alliance logo phone sock to those in the know, and a gorgeous (I think so anyway) Lion phone cover to everyone else! If anyone is interested in the pattern, let me know and I’ll put up the chart on Ravelry.

For more awesome FO’s, check out Tami’s!