Welcome to the final day of the Contempo Studio Blog Hop! Today, the talented Ebony Love of LoveBug Studios is sharing a quick and easy tutorial--colorful wrist straps and lanyards, strip pieced from the Dwellings Beach House colorway. Check out Ebony's tutorial and then find out how you can enter to win a bundle of this gorgeous fabric!
Here's Ebony!
It’s really simple to make a wrist strap or lanyard from
just a few strips of fabric, and end up with dozens of nice stitchy gifts for
your favorite quilting friends at holiday time.
I truly have a love affair with fabrics, and Benartex
fabrics are among my favorites. However, I don’t always have the time to
incorporate my favorites into a quilt, nor do I have the wall or bed space to
display as many as I like. Besides,
I like being able to have the fabrics I love with me at all times, but I can’t
sit in my studio all day buried under my bolts! That’s what makes a project like this so appealing – I get
nearly instant gratification because it stitches up so quickly, and I can take
my favorite fabrics with me wherever I go.
Let’s get
started!
Materials:
6 fat quarters (pick your favorites from the Contempo fat
quarter pack!)
3 – 10 1” swivel hooks (these are usually in the notions or
purse supplies section of your local craft store)
2- 15-1/2” x 21” pieces of lightweight fusible interfacing
(Pellon #911F is awesome for this!)
From each fat quarter, cut:
2- 3” x 21” strips
You’ll be making two strip sets, so arrange the strips the
way you like them and stitch them together in rows. Press your seams open so your strip set lays nice and flat.
Repeat for the other strip set.
Once your strip set is assembled, with wrong sides together,
layer with the fusible interfacing and fuse. This will stabilize your strips and add a bit of body to the
finished piece. Repeat for the other strip set.
Now, cut 4” strips along the width of each strip set. You
should be able to get five pieced strips from each strip set.
If you want to make a lanyard, piece three of the 4” strips
together into one long strip, and press those seams open. If you’re making a
wrist strap, you only need one strip.
Fold your strip in half lengthwise with the right side out
and press along the fold. Starch
works great here – you want a really crisp fold.
Next, fold the raw edges to the center, and press those
folds as well. Your strip is now
about 1” wide.
Thread your folded strip into the swivel hook until the hook
is about at the center of the fabric.
Here’s where it gets a little tricky, but once you do this
you’ll see why and start using this technique for straps from now on!
With the swivel hook at the center, unfold the raw ends of
the strap and pin them right sides together.
Stitch this with a 1/4” seam, and press the seam open. Now you can refold the strap and you
have a continuous loop for your swivel hook.
At your sewing machine, use a zipper foot (or your 1/4"
piecing foot) to topstitch the strap through all layers, about 1/4" from
the edge. Repeat on the opposite side.
The last step is a little bit different for the wrist strap
and lanyard. For the wrist strap, fold the strap in half around the swivel hook
so that you don’t have a bulky seam near the hook. Topstitch close to the swivel hook through all layers,
reinforcing your stitches by stitching several times over your stitching line.
For the lanyard strap, when you fold the strap in half
around the hook, you want to angle the strap slightly so that your lanyard
forms a “v” near the hook. This will allow the lanyard to lay flat against your
chest. Topstitch the strap as you did for the wrist strap.
Now, you get to decide how many wrist straps and lanyards
you will make from your two strip sets.
You can either make 10 wrist straps; 1 lanyard and 7 wrist straps; 2
lanyards and 3 wrist straps; or 3 lanyards and 1 wrist strap. The possibilities
are endless and awesome indeed!
Do you want to win a Dwellings fat quarter set of your own? Just sign up to follow the Benartex blog using either Bloglovin’ or the email feature (both in the right sidebar). Then leave a comment below this post telling us that you are a follower and letting us know who you would make lanyards or wrist straps for. This giveaway will be open through Monday, September 2 at 11:59 pm EST.
Find the remaining Contempo blog hop tutorials here:
