I was late to the iPhone. I have coveted one ever since they first came out, but held off on getting one because I didn’t want to be one of THOSE people who was constantly checking their phone in all situations.

Then I got a non-iphone smartphone, and it sucked. It froze constantly.  This meant that I was one of those people who was always staring at my phone but just watching it do NOTHING.  I was able to get out of my contract (without a penalty, ask me how if you need advice) and switch to the new iPhone, which I love.

As much as I love technology, I obviously love the handmade as well, so when I saw a diy cross-stitch phone case I knew I needed to have it. The next question was what to put on it? Well, I like birds, dammit. I don’t care if they’re cliche in the design world by now. And I have a son who’s name will forever be attached to a finch, so birds it was. (If a single one of you links to the Portlandia sketch, you will be immediately defriended.)

For the girl, I picked a little bluebird, which is a very, very loose association based on her nickname.  If we were going for a bird related to her personality, it would be…I don’t know. Perhaps a mockingbird? Loud, full of personality, bright, devoted to their own families yet unconcerned with other people? Hmmm… that would be keeping within a theme, bookwise.

I finished the birds first but it looked so plain and white and, well, there was no orange, but I was able to fix that with this cool variegated embroidery floss that I found at Fancy Tiger, and voilà!

I’m not entirely sure that it’s exactly what I was hoping for, but it’ll do for now and I’ll see about changing it in the future. The girl has already insisted that the beak of her bird be changed to purple, naturally.

A quick roundup of another high tech/low tech mix–my Kindle.  Again, I like the idea of the faux wood instead of the plastic that it actually is, and it also makes it easier to read in my opinion. I also don’t like the hard cases–I find them heavy, so to protect it I knitted a little sock out of scrap yarn, which does a serviceable job of keeping it unscratched. I tried a few fancy knitting motifs before I realized that I was spending far too much time and just went for some simple stripes.

The wood also serves as a form of camouflage, and can make the Kindle a bit tough to find sometimes.

As far as  next projects, it’s time for me to get started on a sweater that I promised to a friend about, oh, a year ago.  Will have updates on that soon!