Microfiber Lined Phone Case

A soft case that holds your phone and cleans its glossy screen at the same time. A pocket for the phone, a flap with elastic to hold it in place and microfiber everywhere to keep the finger smudge down.

I had been using a hand knit phone sock to hold my beloved G1. But the G1 tended to fall out of the sock as it floated around my purse. The screen was always dirty with my finger prints. I don't expect it to stay perfectly clean, but sometimes the smudges were a bit much and I would never have a bit of microfiber around to clean it with.

Then I got some money from the government and bought my very own sewing machine! (Economy stimulated!) I took some blue scrap fabric, and a blue terrycloth microfiber cloth and whipped up a new soft case for my phone.

1. Microfiber cloth. I used the terrycloth style microfiber cloth. Maybe the thin flat stuff is better with smudges, but this gives a bit of a padding to the case.

2. Quilting fabric. This is for the outside of the case. Comes in nice colors and patterns. Really you could use whatever you have around as long as your machine can handle sewing through it and the microfiber at the same time. Save that sail canvas for something else.

3. Sewing machine. Plus thread and pins and all those useful things that usually live with the sewing machine.

4. Your phone. This was made for my G1, it would work for an iPhone or any of the "iPhone killer" phones; bar shaped with glossy touch screen, usually black, looks vaguely like the monolith from 2001. It would work for a BlackBerry type too, but I don't see much reason for one for a flip phone.

I picked two scraps for the outside, so my first step was to sew them together. This is totally unnecessary if you only want one fabric for the outside. But you do probably want some quilting fabric on the outside, microfiber is very good at picking up lint and dust, plus just feels weird on its own.

Now I sewed the ends of my outer cloth to the ends of the microfiber cloth. I did each end differently. The dark blue end will end up being the top of the pocket, while the other end will be the flap. So the dark blue fabric was folded around the end of the microfiber with the raw edge tucked in. The light blue had the raw edge tucked in, but didn't wrap over the microfiber. This left a little flap on the end where the elastic goes.

This step is where you need your phone handy. Rather than measuring my phone and trying to calculate how big a flat pocket would need to be to accommodate a three dimensional phone, I just stuck the phone in, pinched and pinned. I sewed one seam, stuck the phone in again, adjusted the pins and sewed. I ripped out the first try (too tight) and did it again.

I don't have a picture of it, but I made the pocket less deep than the phone is long. This is so there is part of the phone (the bottom if you stick it in upside down like I do) out of the pocket and easy to grab.

Then I went back and reinforced the seams with zigzag stitches over the top. Careful here! You can easily put the zigzag stitches too far in and make the pocket too small again. I redid this step several times.

Cut off the extra fabric outside the pocket. No going back now! But what to do with the unfinished edge of the flap? I picked an edging stitch out of the manual that came with my sewing machine. I tested it on a scrap, liked the way it looked and sewed the raw edges of the flap.

The problem I had with the knit sock was that the phone kept falling out as it floated around my purse. The flap was not going to be enough to keep the phone in, something was needed to keep the whole thing closed. That's what the elastic band is for.

I wish I could tell you how exactly I figured out how much elastic to use, but I'm not entirely sure myself. I put the phone in the pocket, wrapped some elastic around, pulled it a little tight and then sewed it in. Too much and it wont be taught, too little and it wont make it around the bottom. Uh, good luck I guess?

Anyway, I pined it in end of the flap and carefully sewed over all the layers.

Since I took all these photos with the G1, I had to use a plastic case from a deck of cards to show how it works.

To get my phone out in a hurry, I just pull the flap up rather than pulling it off the bottom entirely.

And look at all that microfiber for cleaning!

Thanks for reading my first Instructable! Let me know if you have any questions or if something isn't clear. I'll try my best to answer.