A quick win out of the scrap pile

Heidi's wristlet key fob: one strip of fabric, one strip of interfacing, and a set of hardware you close with pliers. Steps are in a free guide.

A row of finished fabric wristlet key fobs laid out across a black cutting mat, each one folded into a loop with a silver clamp and split ring at the end. They run roughly in color order from coral and pink prints at the top through yellow, teal and green to navy and dark confetti prints at the bottom. — One sitting's worth, laid out on Heidi's cutting mat. Every one of these came out of the scrap bin.

In the profile we ran, Heidi talked about rotating a big complicated quilt with something scrappy and fast, so there's a quick win now and then. This is what the quick one usually is, and Heidi sent over the whole process so we could write it down.

It isn't an original pattern. Heidi worked it out from the tutorials that are already out there and then adjusted it over a lot of fobs, which is the version you're getting here. A wristlet key fob is one strip of fabric, one strip of interfacing, and a set of hardware you close with pliers. There's no pattern to buy and no fabric to go shopping for, which is most of the appeal. It uses the leftover strips nobody can quite bring themselves to throw away.

The measurements

A stack of white interfacing strips and a fanned-out pile of cut quilting cotton strips on a black cutting mat, with a blue rotary cutter resting across them. The prints include pink birds and flowers, yellow chickens, orange florals, and dark confetti. — Cut interfacing on the left, fabric fanned out on the right. This is the whole supply list, minus the hardware.

Cut one piece of fabric 3.5 by 12 inches and one piece of interfacing 1.75 by 12. The hardware is the 1 inch kind, a flat metal clamp with a split ring on the end.

The math works out neatly, which is the part Heidi likes. Center the 1.75 inch interfacing on the 3.5 inch fabric and you're left with seven eighths of an inch of bare fabric down each side. Fold both of those in toward the middle and you're at 1.75 inches wide. Fold that in half and you're at seven eighths, which is what slides into 1 inch hardware.

Most of it is ironing

Center the interfacing on the wrong side of the fabric, mist it with water, and press on high. Put a cloth between the iron and the interfacing while you do it. That keeps the adhesive off your iron plate, and you will be glad you did.

Fold each long raw edge in so it butts up against the edge of the interfacing, and press. Then fold the whole strip in half so those raw edges are shut inside, and press again.

Every tutorial out there says to glue that last fold closed before you sew it. Heidi didn't. Clips instead, and it held fine.

Then the sewing part, which is short

Stitch down both long sides, an eighth of an inch in from the edge, with the stitch length set around 3mm. That's a little longer than a piecing stitch and it looks more like topstitching, which is what you want here since it's the only stitching that shows.

Fold the strap in half so the two short ends meet, and press. That's the finished shape, about 6 inches long. Zigzag or serge across the raw end so it doesn't fray inside the hardware.

The hardware

Finished wristlet loops in navy dot, pink candy, dark green and light blue cloud prints piled on a cutting mat next to a heap of silver key fob clamps and split rings waiting to be attached. — Sewn loops on one side, hardware still in a pile on the other. This is the stage where a stack of them goes fast.

Run glue along the short end, center the fabric inside the clamp, and squeeze it shut with a pair of pliers. Fabric glue or hot glue, whichever is already open.

That's the only step where you can wreck one, so it's worth going slowly and making sure the fabric is sitting square in the clamp before you commit.

Beads, and the lip balm trick

The split ring is where this stops being a strap and starts being yours. Niki went and picked out beads for this today, and they don't go loose on the ring. They go on a beadable keychain bar, which is a straight little metal stick with a loop at one end and a ball that unscrews at the other. Unscrew the ball, slide your beads down the bar in whatever order you want, screw it back on, and clip the loop onto the split ring. The order you chose stays the order it is.

The other charm we keep coming back to is a lip balm, so the tube rides on your keys instead of living in the bottom of a bag. You make the hole yourself with a very small nail through the flat pinched seam at the base of the tube, the closed tab below the barrel, then thread a jump ring through it. Go slowly, and stay on the pinched tab. A hole anywhere near the part that actually holds the balm gives you a slow leak in your bag, which is the exact problem you were trying to solve.

We're still looking at which lip balm brands we'd want to stand behind, so we're starting without one and adding it later.

It's becoming a kit

We're turning this into a craft kit for the shop, and the sewing is done before it reaches you. The wristlet comes pre-sewn, and what's in the box is the fun half: a beadable bar, the beads Niki chose, and a small pair of pliers so you're not hunting for one in a drawer. No machine required, no cutting mat, nothing to press.

Which makes it a different kind of thing than we first pictured. It's a table activity. A girls' night in, or the birthday party where the favor and the activity are the same object.

The lip balm isn't in it yet for the reason above, but the guide tells you how to add your own. It isn't listed yet either. When it is, it'll be under Craft Kits with the rest of them.

We wrote it down

All of it fits on a few pages, so we put the measurements, the pressing order, the steps and the charm trick into a free guide you can keep next to the machine.

Download the free guide (PDF): DIY Wristlet Key Fobs

Nobody in Heidi's house needs another key fob and there's a row of them on the cutting mat anyway. I'm choosing to read that as a good sign for the kit.

— Kim