Minecraft TNT Tissue Box Cover

Minecraft is awesome! It looks awesome and it is fun to play. Its pixelated style goes perfectly with needlecrafts like plastic canvas. I decided to make up a tissue box cover with plastic canvas in the style of the Minecraft TNT block. Enjoy!



PS: Thank you to Jessyratfink for finding and suggesting the location that was used for this picture.

Supplies:

• 7 Mesh Plastic Canvas (can be hard to find in stores and I needed 2 sheets in order to cut out all the pieces)
• #16 Metal Yarn Needle
• 3 Shades of Red Yarn (dark, medium, and light) (I actually used the dark and light to make my medium)
• 3 Shades of Grey/White Yarn (dark, medium, and light)
• Black Yarn
• Square Tissue Box (red preferably, though it will be covered and doesn't really matter)
• Scissors and Exacto Knife (Exacto is optional if you need it)

Also, for the yarn, you don't want it too light or it won't cover the plastic canvas well. I used yarn that was Medium (4) weight. I used mostly Red Heart and Vanna. I got anything that was Medium weight in the color I needed.

The pattern is here for you to try to follow along with. I actually just looked at images online and went for it. But I wanted to write up the pattern just in case. In the next couple steps I'll talk about stitches, because instead of doing all short stitches or all long stitches I did 2 short with a long to imitate a pixel. I used MacStitch to make the patterns and with the free version you cannot save so you get a screenshot of what I did.

I used the internet to find various images of the top and sides for recreating it.

Mine ended up being 30 Squares by 34 Squares. You need to make sure it will fit over the box, so go big rather than small. I measured the plastic canvas against a tissue box. Remember to go bigger rather than smaller or it won't fit over the box. Mine actually fit just right.

Remember to cut off all those little edges too. They will snag on your yarn and just make it look messy.

All you really need to do from here is follow the pattern. The easiest way is to look at my finished pieces and go for it. I am going to give you tips for working with plastic canvas for the next couple of steps.

I only really found a red and a dark red. To make my medium color, I took two strands from each color and put them together. It is a really nice way to tie two colors together in a pattern and I really liked the results.

For this pattern, I wanted to give the illusion of pixels. You can do this just fine by doing all short stitches, but I decided to do something else for this. To make 1 pixel, I did two shorts surrounding one double stitch as shown in the first image. The sides weren't even so there were places I had to do only short single stitches, but the majority of the stitches look like this.

Also, you can do your stitches to follow the shortest path as shown on the left in the third image, or do long stitches along your back like the one on the right. Do whichever you choose, but sometimes the long back stitches produce better results.

Also, with the "N" in "TNT" there are partial stitches surrounding the middle of the N because that was the way it looked online. You can also make a perfect N with lines that go diagonal from corner to corner, but I took those stitches out and went with the pixel look in the end.

If you need to undo stitches, there are two ways.

The first is better if you need to undo just a couple stitches. All you need to do is stitch back through the hole you came up. This gives you nice clean results.

The second way is good if you have a lot as it is quicker. What you do is unthread your needle and use it to pull the last stitch out. Just keep going until you have them all, make sure you are going in reverse order or you might pull your yarn too much and break it or fray it too much. This method isn't as great as you leave fibers behind, as you can see, where the yarn has snagged.

When you start stitching, you need to hold the tail of the yarn down so the stitches don't fall out. There are 2 ways to do this.

The first way is the most common especially when you first start. What you do is you pull the stitch up and then back down so you are on the same side with both ends of yarn. Pull all the way through and leave about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of a yarn tail. Hold that in place with your finger and do another stitch. Hold the tail so it will be trapped by the next stitch on the back. Then continue as normal, but try to hold it down whenever you can with stitches and be careful of pulling the tail through

The second way to start is to bring your needle and yarn through stitches that are already on your project. Put your needle through about an inch of work and carefully pull through until the end of the tail just reaches the edge of where you pulled through. You still need to hold this down while you start your stitching so it doesn't pull out. I prefer this for later on in the project (especially where I have to do just a few stitches in the work) and when I put pieces together.

When you are at the end of the color you are working on, bring your need through some of the stitches in the back of your work (like the second way you start a stitch). Pull tight all the way through and cut the yarn right where it comes up out of the back of your work. That's it!

Time to do the top. You could have cut this earlier, but I cut it last. It doesn't matter.

Since we made all the pieces the same width, the top will be a perfect square. Cut out your top piece.

Now you need to cut out the top of the middle where the tissues will come up. I actually forgot and started stitching and had to pull my stitches out for the pictures. You can see some fibers that got left behind.

You can cut the middle however big of small you want. For my Pattern I cut a 30 by 30 square that is a frame with 7 square wide sides. So the middle that was cut out was 16 squares by 16 squares. I couldn't get my bulky scissors in to cut it so I used an exacto to get it started. Then finished with the scissors.

The top was a pain to design and to stitch, mostly because of the middle. I just kind of went for it and left strings hanging when I wasn't sure if I was done with that color. Finish all the stitches and then use black around the inside part. I figured since the middle of the top was mostly black anyway, it would look better all outlined in black.

Time to assemble.

You can see you will, obviously, be attaching all the sides to the middle and then the sides together. I just kind of went for it, but after having did it, I suggest you attach all the sides to the top first, mostly because if you don't and you finish your yarn up at the top, it is hard to tuck the end of your yarn away. I suggest you attach the sides to the top and then work from the top out to the edges so you finish at the edges and have an easier time finishing.

Don't forget to stitch around the bottom of the pieces so it looks all nice.

You can do what you want to put it together, but some things I did were, double stitches on all corners for stability and to cover all the plastic I could, and I attached all pieces with my medium red (my light and dark red blend) except for the middle of the sides which I connect with the medium grey.

You are done. Doesn't it look fancy! Don't light the tissues! It won't end well!