I wasn’t all too happy with my friend’s iPhone sleeve, remember? Thinking of the “monster inside” still made me laugh though, so last weekend I decided to knit a “summer sleeping bag” for the unknown beast.

It had to be thinner but still protective (= rather knitted than crocheted), dark colored (= stain-resistant), hard-wearing (= no real wool), and – probably most important – less prone to pilling.

Fortunately, I came across Anastasia‘s post on how to do the magic cast on when knitting a sleeve. Then Sonja‘s idea (see comments at original post) of using cotton fired my imagination (even though she warned me of the material’s possible disadvantages …). This is how I started.

Against all odds, the “archetype” turned out nice. Nothing wrong with nice, but I didn’t think nice would satisfy the monster. It had to be more than that. And when I came across Anette‘s owl purse I instantly knew what I wanted!

See all three versions below. To me, the ultimate version is blue – that’s the sleeve I sent to Hamburg last night.