When Steve first asked for a toilet paper cover (you know, that covers the spare roll that sits on the back of the toilet?), I didn’t take him very seriously. I did start one, thinking it would be a funny surprise. He had specified a “manly” cover, as though there’s such a thing as a manly way to cover your toilet paper, so I decided to crochet the body out of crochet thread and then cross stitch a Boston Red Sox logo on it. Unfortunately, it turned out that even with such fine crochet it didn’t make for a very fine cross stitch canvas. I couldn’t fit the logo on in sufficient detail for it to look nice. So I forgot about the project.

Then, shortly before Christmas, it came up again. I realized he was really hoping and expecting to get this toilet paper roll cover. So I packed up my crochet materials for my trip to Maryland to visit my family and worked like mad while I was down there. I re-created the body of the cover, getting a little closer to the exactly correct dimensions, and then cast about for a way to decorate it.

Thinking it might be possible to buy a Red Sox appliqué, my mother and I visited a sports store and a craft store on Christmas Eve. The sports store didn’t even have a Red Sox hat (it was Maryland) and the crafts store didn’t have sports logos, but we bought a bunch of letters and stars and what sports motif appliqués we could find and all collaborated on the best layout so that Steve could have a merry Christmas with his toilet paper cover.

I’m happy to say that he really liked it. Here are front and back views.

Now he wants a Caribbean themed one for the guest bathroom. Oh so manly.