Thursday, April 24, 2014

Crafty Thursdays: Police Box Tissue Box Cover



Kim Hammond is back (after that fabulous interview with Brad Parks yesterday) for Crafty Thursdays with instructions for an adorable Police Box Tissue Box Cover. We do love our TARDIS crafts and a few weeks ago we had directions for a fabulous crocheted notebook cover from Laura K. Curtis. 


I love all things mystery and I also love most things British so when you combine the two one of my favorite icons is the familiar blue Tardis Police Box.  I am always in search of Tardis related crafts and I recently hit the motherload. So with the assistance of my mom, crafter extraordinaire, stay tuned for Tardis-related crafts over the next few months.

A police box is a British telephone kiosk or callbox located in a public place for the use of members of the police, or for members of the public to contact the police. The interior of the box is like a miniature police station for use by police officers. Police boxes predate the era of cell phones and now British police officers carry two-way radios and/or mobile phonesand much to my chagrin, most police boxes are now extinct.

I was looking for a fairly easy project so that even some of the less crafty would consider giving it a try. I settled on a Tardis tissue box cover. Even if you’ve never tried a counted cross stitch project, this is not too difficult.

Use standard plastic canvas (available at any craft store) and worsted weight yarn. This pattern was a free downloads from www.ravelty.com

Here’s what you will need:
  • An 11x17 piece of plastic canvas (you can get this at any craft store)
  • Yarn: navy blue, blue, black, gray and white worsted weight yarn (I used Red Heart)
  • Yarn needle
  • Scissors


Here’s what you do:
Hint: follow my instructions on the size of the plastic canvas pieces because I found that the pattern is not accurate.

1. Cut out four (4) pieces of plastic canvas 30 squares wide by 38 squares long. These will be your four (4) sides.

2.  Cut one (1) piece of plastic canvas 30 squares by 30 squares. This is your top. You need to cut a square in the middle of this piece and this will be where the tissue comes out. I cut out a piece that was 7 squares by 7 squares. 

3. Whip stitch the box together using blue yarn. Here's how to do a whip stitch.

I used basketweave (Here's how to do a basket weave stitch.) stitch throughout, but you can try other stitches for different textures. Use the whip stitch and blue yarn to attach the pieces together and to go over the bottom edge so there is no exposed plastic showing. Also use the whip stitch around the hole where the tissue will come out to make the edges smooth and nice looking.

4. Pop it over a tissue box and you're done.





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