She Sews!: Trying out IC's Wrist Key Chain Tutorial

My boys' school is already taking donations of craft items for a little Holiday 'store' they will be doing in a couple of months. The idea is that sewists and crafters like me will donate lots of handmade stuff that that the kids will buy and all the money goes to the school. Not a bad idea, really, but I've heard that they sell the handmade goodies for cheap, so maybe I can go too???

Anyway, this week I tried a new tutorial and whipped up 17 of these adorable key chain fobs. I've made them from a different tutorial before and I like this one better because the hardware is much cuter and the strap is just big enough to fit your hand through - genius!

So here is the link to the original tutorial by Infarrantly Creative. I pretty much followed the tutorial to the letter (except for one thing - read on). I love how she uses purse hardware for the clip. I knew I would want a lot of them so I ordered bulk from a Hong Kong supplier here.

The only change I made was leaving out the fusible interfacing in between the fabric layers. I got impatient after cutting 34 rectangles from my scraps and I didn't want to cut out 17 more pieces. The interfacing would have made the straps stiffer, but honestly I think they are fine without it. Then I set my ironing board up next to my sewing machine and worked like a maniac ironing two pieces, sewing them together, and ironing two more...

I do have one quick tip. If your machine lets you move your sewing machine needle over to the right, that will help you get more of the strap over the feed dogs, making everything move smoother and your stitching look nicer.

After the straps were done came the fun part deciding which side would be the inside and picking out ribbon and lace scraps to match. I ended up changing my mind lots and being amazed at how some prints I had thought would go on the outside looked more surprising and cute on the inside.