The thing I'm showing you today is how I made a crochet deck box for Magic the Gathering cards but it could also hold cards for any colectable card game and the principlas could be used to make any size box.
This was my fist atempt at the patern:
It was a good start but the bottom was messy and saggy and it was hard to get the cards in and out though i did learn a lot form it such as how to make the button hole just the right size for an inch sized button and to be be careful with your decoratons. This one is suposed to have two falling leaves on it but I think I may be the only one that sees that. Though it is better than the first accent I did as I made the leaf rounded on one end and added a stem and cross ribs and my husband thought it was a tenis racket.
So back to the drawing board I went knowing I needed to find a new way to do the bottom. Most of my work so far with crochet was with amigurumi which had you working in the round and spacing your increases around the row so doing that had seemed logical to me but that is the wrong way to do a rectangle as I soon learned.
First you start with a chain I started with only 6 ch stiches but depending on the size you're going for you can have more or less. A general rul of thumb though is that the more stiches you start with the wider the base is going to be compared to the depth you want. Stich both sides of the chain for the first round and then make sure you can pick out your 4 corner stiches. for the rest of the rounds in the bottom you're going to put 3 Single crochets (SC) in the corners and one in each other stich. Keep going untill you get the size you want making sure to mark the first stich of eavh new round. I use plastic stich makers I got at Hobby Lobby for a few dollars but you can mark it with a contrasting piece of yarn but i find that two easy pull out by accadent and loose your spot. the plastic ones will not come off unless you want them to but as a draw back I've broken a bunch of them while opening them to take them off. In fact the red one in the picture above broke one round after that picture was taken.
When you have the bottom the size you want you may notice some visable holes in the middle where you worked both sides of the chain and you have the starting end of the yarn. So with the wrong side facing up thread the end on a tapastry or darning needle and kill two birds with one stone.
Weave your needle in and out of the holes making sure that you come back up on the wrong side and then weave the end into your work and cut off the excess.
When you have a few rounds done you want to put a suport in the bottom. I used plastic canvas because I had it on hand and because the holes had an added purpose (more on that later) but you could use card stock or even cardboard as with somethign this high it's not goin to really be visable. if the bottom will be visable try using something like a card. or magazine cover. Having the suport in the bottom will help the piece keep it's shape and it will help you tell if youre gauge is right or not. If you're making something like this where it needs to be a percise size this lets you know while you still have only a little done if you've gotten things too small or too big. If the size is not inporant just make sure the suport is trimed down so that it doesn't poke out the corners.
Once you're happy with that and have worked the box to the high you want it's time to finish the edge. If you want an open box this is your last step.
The reverse single crochet or crab stich is not hard though it does feel ackward to do particularly the first time you do it. I find that not only does it give a nicer looking edge though it makes it more dureable and less likely to fray wich is a win-win. I only did it along the two short sides and the front though as I was still goign to need to work on the other side to add the flap.
this part is actually quite easy as it's just doing sc in rows doing a chain and a turn at the end of each row untill you have it almost long enough and it's time to add the button hole. I knew from my past experments for my button size I need a 4 stich hole so SC as normal untill you get to the middle 4 stiches of the row.
So you just make a Ch of 4 skip over the middle 4 sitches and then crochet as normal the rest of the row. You'll wind up with a hole that looks like this:
For you next row work all the stiches including the chain stiches. Continue untill you get the flap to the length you want then finish with a revers SC like you did for the top edges. Then tie off your yarn and weave in the end. Attach the button using the hole to help you figure out where to put it. The box is now done unless you want to do even more extras.
I made a simple movable divider out of plastic canvas simply cutting it to size and overcasting the edge in the same colour yarn. i left the bottom nubs on the piece though as you can see in the picture above wich is not normally you do with plastic canvas but doing this allows the nubs to catch in the holes of the plastic canavas suport I put in the bottom so that the divider will stay in place and not slide about.
Above you'll see the box with cards in it. The first box shows 60 cards in sleaves with plenty of room on the other side of the diveder for another 40 cards.
And here we have the finished deck box decorated with the Loading Ready Run logo and the matching draw string back to hold conters and dice to go with it. the bag isn't finished yet though as it still needs to have to logo on it too and I need to find a better string for the draw string part. I have a normal piece of yarn through there now and had plan to just use a simple yarn idot cord untill my husband pointed out that would quickly fray. So I'm goign to need something a bit more durable but I haven't found anything yet.
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