Baseball Keychain

Now we get into all the gift posts that I didn’t have a chance to post before Christmas. But this is why we have the DIY Gift tab so you can look ’em up in time for NEXT holiday season. This one is pretty easy, and you can whip up two of these baseball keychains in less than an hour.

So what you need is a leather baseball (old or new, it’s your choice, though I like the weathering on an old ball), 2 keychain jump rings (they tend to be sold in pairs), a sturdy sewing needle, some red embroidery floss, a craft knife, and 2 small carabiners (optional). You could also use a pair of scissors to cut the thread, but I just used the knife, like a badass.

First, take your baseball and rest it on a sturdy surface and hold it firmly in one hand. Use the craft knife to cut along the seam of the ball, severing all the threads that are holding it together.

Now you can peel off the two leather pieces.

Discard the ball (it’s basically just a tightly wrapped ball of twine).

Peel off the string that is stuck to the underside of the leather pieces.

Try to get as much off as you can.

Now you can pull out the cut stitching.

Two naked baseball halves. They will be slightly sticky and so will adhere to themselves when you fold them.

But before you do, make sure to thread a jump ring on and slide it to the narrow part of the leather.

Now cut yourself a lengthy piece of embroidery floss and thread it onto your needle so that the thread is doubled.

Start sewing. I thought about using the blanket stitch here but I wanted the thread lines to align with the old stitching grooves so I ended up just using the whip stitch.

It was easier to align the grooves on my second one.

Keep going until you get to the other end.

Tie off your thread and tuck it between the folds of the leather piece to hide the knot. Add your (optional) carabiner and you’re all set. Feel free to monogram the keychain as well.

Ruched Scarf

Sorry for the delay in this posting — technical glitch!

I love scarves.  They’re a very popular fashion accessory in Ottawa, and they’re starting to become more common here in St. John’s.  Mags gave me this one for Christmas a few years back and I love it.  I always get compliments on it.

So why not give one back, to both my sisters-in-law, Mags and Thidz, and Atlas, my sister-in-law to-be?

This was a little tricky, because I was working with slippery fabric and going entirely by hand from a plan locked inside my mind.  But it was simple enough, thankfully, that I couldn’t screw it up.  It just took a while.

I had two pieces of fabric that I thought would make great scarves, and they were a decent length.  I cut them in half lengthwise, and so ended up with four scarves — one extra.

To hem the outside edges, I rolled the fabric under itself, as you can see here.

Then I used a whip stitch, which I pulled tight, to get a gathered border.

For the middle, I ironed a crease down the centre of this fabric as a guideline.

Then I used a gathered whip stitch again to make the ruched edge.

This is the completed white scarf. Or a part of it at least. My lightbox isn’t big enough for you to get the full effect.

On this silver fabric, it was harder to do the edges because the fabric kept fraying, but easier to do the ruching in the middle because I could follow the pattern on the cloth.