Project Log: Wrist Rest Cover

I have a wrist rest for my keyboard -- as do most folks who type a lot. It's the older style, without the gel, and they're difficult to find these days. I plan to keep this one forever.

But, alas, the plasticized 'fabric' it's covered with does a number on my skin if they touch. Which they do, see, because I use the thing.

So I had this solution. I took a scrap of linen and wrapped it around the wrist rest, and attached it neatly with rubber bands, and figured I'd come up with a more permanent solution later.

...that was probably five years ago. So it got to looking like this (fair warning: gratuitous cat picture):

I finally got sick of this last weekend, just before the trip to the mountains with my family, so I gathered my materials and laid my Plans.

I have an old, beat-up flannel shirt that once belonged to my dad. I wore it until its holes had holes, then kept it for sewing projects, because the fabric was so soft. I've already used part of it to cover my mouse pad, but I didn't think to take pictures of the project. Suffice to say it came out looking pretty good.

I used one sleeve for the wrist rest, since it was just the right length:

I knew if I simply wrapped the wrist rest in the flannel it'd slide all over my desk, so I had to leave the grippy part on the bottom uncovered. Instead of wrapping the fabric all the way 'round I folded it over and pinned it to the bottom edge of the wrist rest, and started whip-stitching it on, like so:

I didn't sew all the way to the end. I knew I was going to have to fold it over neatly somehow, and I wasn't sure how yet.

Instead of dealing with that, I turned it over, pulled the fabric tightly across the top, and pinned and sewed as before.

Eventually my fingers got tired -- it's hard to pull a needle through something as dense as a wrist rest -- and I experimented with the ends, finally coming up with this, which turned out pretty neat:

Over the weekend (and with plenty of breaks for another project, about which more later) I got the rest of it stitched up. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Here's a view of the bottom, with the grippy part still quite available to keep the thing in place on my desk.

And here it is back in use (cat optional). You can see my mouse pad, covered in the same fabric, to the upper right:

It's more comfortable for my wrists, I don't have to worry about the rubber bands breaking and flying across the room (which used to happen disturbingly regularly), and wow, does it look good.