DIY Felt Phone Sleeve
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This post was last edited/updated in March 2021.
I deleted the whole section about my phone-free life. Also… I totally forgot there was a ton of extra stuff in here besides the tutorial including recommending an app called Gramblr if you didn’t have a mobile device . At the time, it seemed like a good app and was recommended by many people as an option to upload quality photos to Instagram (and I’d used it because I went mobile free and had no other alternative to upload to IG). Later on, I realized that despite the fact that I hadn’t used it in years, it kept running a process on my computer that I couldn’t stop, and I couldn’t uninstall. The way I finally got rid of it was thanks to the help of MalwareBytes. If you also installed and tried Gramblr, don’t assume that it’s not doing things in the background without your using it - run a scan and have it removed. If you have Facebook connected to your Instagram, you no longer need an external app to upload photos - you can do this through the Facebook Business platform (at least that’s how I can do it from my machine these days).
How To Make a Felt Phone Sleeve
You're going to need a piece of felt. There are a few ways you can do this:
- Wet felting is one option (I recommend Living Felt's youtube channel to learn how).
- You can use a piece of commercial 100% wool felt, which is what I did, and embellish that with needle felting and embroidery.
- If you have one, you can use an embellisher/felting machine to make your own felt (like I did in my last felt art journal post).
- You can repurpose a shrunken, felted sweater (and embellish it first
IF you are familiar with wet felting, know how to calculate shrinkage (usually around 30%) and do not plan to needle felt anything on your case, you could skip all these steps and felt a complete case using a resist. I, however, am not good at wet felting, so I’m needle felting this.
I am LOVING these colors!
For my felt, I decided to first use my blending board to lay out my colors. I wanted to do a white-to-teal ombre effect, throwing in some Angelina fiber in mint sparkle for a glittery effect and a lock of alpaca here and there for texture. I then cut a sheet of commercial 100% wool felt for extra protection/padding (the commercial felt I have is an ivory color, which is why I still wanted to use white, as well as getting a better blend between the colors). If you don't use commercial felt, I'd recommend making sure your felt is a minimum 1/8" thickness and fairly solid. I used my felting machine to felt it all together.
Here I'm figuring out the placement/which part of the felt I want to use.
Now we're going to cut it down to the right size. The felt should be as tall as your phone plus half an inch. Place the phone inside and fold it over, leaving about half an inch overhang. I pressed my fingertip down (see photo below) to figure out my "seam allowance", then trimmed the other edge. This way you'll be able to stitch it closed and it won't be too tight to get the phone in and out. I like the look of having one of the corners rounded (the one between the two edges that are being stitched). Feel free to play around with the top edge, possibly doing a cut out of some sort to make it easier to grab your phone, or end the stitching before you get all the way to the top. I did take the cut down piece and run the edges through the embellisher to make sure any loose ends were felted in properly and give it a bit more of a finished edge. You could also try to finish off the edges with wet felting (though if you are using a polyester blend or 100% polyester commercial felt, wet felting won't do anything) - if you decide to go this route, give yourself a bit more of a seam allowance than I did.
Now comes the really fun part! Time to get your needle and wool out and go to town decorating and embellishing your case. Maybe you want to make a creature of some sort, or just do a floral design, or cute shapes, or anything really. Use your sewing machine and add some free motion stitches to it. Grab some embroidery thread and embroider it. Add buttons and beads and sequins if you like. Felt or stitch on other fabrics. Its your case, so make it as personal as you want! For my case, I loved the way it looked without being embellished, so I went straight to stitching.
Once you're done with that, it's time to tie it all together. You will need to fold it back in half, and starting from ether the bottom or top corner (not in the middle), do a blanket, aka buttonhole, stitch around the edges. In case you don't know how to do that, this is my favorite resource for embroidery stitches. In fact, if you're still working on the previous step, check out the other stitches on that blog for some additional inspiration! I used a DMC Satin (specifically DMC SAS 5959), because I wanted to coordinate with the Angelina sparkles I used in my felt. Personally, I do not like working with the satin floss, because it likes to unwind itself and is a pain to tighten down - once I run out of these I don't plan to get more. If you want an alternative that's sparkly but a bit more manageable, I'd recommend trying DMC's etoile flosses instead.
And voila! You now have a beautiful felt phone sleeve you can call your own, and maybe even use to show off if someone asks you about your hobbies. *wink*
Happy Felting (and stitching)!
