Jane's Girl Designs: Make it Monday

Hey! Did everyone have a good weekend? Mine was lovely - relaxing (much needed) and still got a few projects done. I find it hard to get much done during the Olympics because I love them! There's just so much to watch, so much...

...athleticism :)

Anyway...here's a tutorial for a recent project - prettying a camera strap!

I LOVE how this turned out. It makes using my camera all the funner (yeah, I used the term funner...my brain isn't functioning, I'm still staring at the picture of the men swimmers).

Anyway, here's the strap that came with my camera...

I mean, don't get me wrong, it serves it's purpose and I know it's solid and will hold the camera...but it's also a bit fug. I went to my favorite fabric store a few weeks ago (Urban Arts and Crafts in Briarcliff) and picked up some Amy Butler fabric.

And then I also grabbed some extra quilt batting so I can add some cushion to my strap (definitely glad I did this because I've been wearing it...a lot).

So first thing I did was measure my strap, both length and width. Then I cut a strip in each fabric - long enough to cover the whole strap and an inch wider than my camera strap. I also cut one strip of batting the same size. I tried two strips of batting at first, and it was way too much bulk - really you only need one strip to cover the side that will rest against your neck.

Once I had all my strips cut, I laid them so that the two right sides of the fabric were facing, and then the batting was just outside of the fabric that will be up against my neck. I pinned along the sides to keep them all lined up, like this...

Now fair warning - when I took these pictures i still had two pieces of batting, one on each side of my fabric. I made the whole thing like that, realized it would work, and re-did it with one piece of batting. I didn't take new pictures - I'd like to say it's because it doesn't really change the steps that much (which is true) but it's really because I was super irritated by this point in the project and just wanted to get it done without taking pictures :)

So once I had my fabric and one piece of batting pinned together, I sewed along the two long sides.

Then I turned the whole thing inside out. The best way I've found to do this is huge extra large safety pins - pin it to one side of your fabric on the end...

Then push the pin inside of the tube of fabric and use the pin to bunch the fabric over and pull down to slowly turn the whole thing inside out.

Now once I had it turned inside out, I just pulled and snaked it over my existing camera strap. I resewed over the sides once I had it in place (about 1/4" in on each side) so that the cover is sewed to the existing strap. I also folded over my edges and sewed them to finish off the ends.