Mega Man E-Tank Crochet Can Cozy Pattern

Only have a few bars of life left? Turn any drink into an E-xtraordinary drink with this can cozy!

The Mega Man series is known for an item called an "E-Tank" or "E-can" which looks like a soda can and, when used, refills your health meter. This cozy makes any 12 oz canned drink look just like this item and, because it's made with absorbent cotton yarn, keeps your hands dry and your drink cold. It's also very sturdy, so you could put it on your desk and use it to hold pens and pencils, loose change, and other trinkets!

Step 1: Materials

To make this, you will need...

- A size H or larger crochet hook
- Black worsted weight cotton (or acrylic if you can't find black cotton)
- Blue worsted weight cotton (I used Peaches'n'Cream's "Hot Blue")
- One sheet of black felt
- A sewing needle/black thread OR a hot glue gun with glue
- Scissors

Peaches 'n Cream Yarn is anywhere from $1-$3, and most craft stores have 40% off coupons to make this cheaper. You can find single sheets of felt in the craft foam/kids crafts section of most craft store for about 30 cents. If we ignore the one-time cost of a hot glue gun and scissors, assume that a crochet hook is about $4 and that you can make 5 E-tanks from a regular-sized cake of Peaches 'n Cream, the total cost of each cozy is $2!

Step 2: Crochet

People always asked me how I learned to crochet such crazy detailed stuff. My answer? YouTube. I seriously just typed "how to  crochet" in the search bar one day. It is a truly easy thing to do, and I believe anyone can learn the basics from a video. Nothing beats watching someone actually DOING it.

There are hundreds of crochet tutorials on YouTube, so I feel I don't need to be repetitive and make my own for this instructable. But! Here are the crochet skills you will need and can search for:

- How to single crochet
- How to half-double crochet
- How to crochet in the round
- How to make a magic ring
- Front loop and back loop crochet

Step 3: Pattern

Gauge - In crochet, we often talk about "gauge", or how many stitches and rows you have per inch. Gauge is not important to this project; so long as it fits a can, who cares how big your stitches are? 

Pattern
-Make a Magic ring
1) sc 6 in ring with black and pull shut
2) inc by 6 (12 stitches total)
3) inc by 6 (18)
4) inc by 6 (24)
5) inc by 8 (32)

            - This is the base of your can. Depending on how tight you crochet and what size hook you use, 32 sts might be too big or too small to fit a can. Use a can as a reference and make this round bigger/smaller as needed.

6) Change to blue sc around in back loops only
7) sc around
8) Change to black, sc around
9) Change to blue, sc around in back loops only
10-17) sc around about 8 more times, or as tall/short as you need
18) Change to black, sc around
19) Change to blue, sc around in back loops only
20) sc around
21) hdc around and end off

Tie off all your loose ends. Cut a big bold E out of felt, and attach it to the front. You can sew it on, but hot glue is EXCELLENT at bonding crochet and felt together... and is much faster than sewing!

You can use this pattern to make any sort of can cozy. I have also made one with round 1-6 in gray, 7-20 bright green, and 21 again in gray and cut a small Metroid of out felt to look like the Metroid-in-a-capsule from Super Metroid. You can also cross-stitch with yarn and a tapestry needle over your single crochet; I did this once to make a can cozy with a Zelda "Life" bar and hearts on it. The possibilities are endless! Have fun!