Tutorial: Pocket keychain

I made another pocket key chain to adorn my keys and thought I would share how to make it. It uses just the teensiest bit of fabric so you can make one with some scraps from another project. And you'll need a snap (I used a sew-on one) or some velcro for the closure. So here we go...

• Prepare your pattern pieces. Those are inches:

• Cut out one of each, in both an exterior and lining fabric:

• Right sides facing, sew the exterior piece to its corresponding lining piece all the way around except for the bottom. Sew close to the edge. Lift your foot and pivot at the corners so they are nice and sharp.

• Clip your corners:

• If you're using quilting weight fabric, you should iron on some interfacing to the wrong side of the lining piece where the snap will be sewn onto the tab. Just where this blue square is:

• Push and pull the pieces right side out through the opening in the bottom. Tweezers are your friend.

• Use something pokey (blunt pencil here) to push your corners out to nice sharp tips.

• Press flat.

• Lay the non-tabbed piece on top of the tabbed piece (linings facing) and press down the tab to make a crease.

• Sew one side of the snap to the tab, above the crease and centred. If you're neat, sew just through the lining so you can't see the stitches from the other side. Or if your stitches can be seen on the other side, you could sew a button on top to hide them. Both would be awesome.

• Lay the un-tabbed piece back on top of the tabbed piece (linings facing). If you want to save yourself some aggravation (which I didn't, it was too late for lucid thoughts) I recommend sewing on the other side of the snap now. Fold the tab down and mark where it falls on the untabbed piece and sew it on. If you're a perfectionist, sew only through the lining again.

• Okay, ignore the missing snap for now. You've done it better. Pin the two layers together so that all the edges match up.

• Sew all the way around close to the edge. Make sure you front and back stitch a couple of times at the top of the pocket as this bit will be under pressure. Lo, the snap has appeared!

• Cut a length of 1" ribbon that is 4 inches long. Press each end under a quarter of an inch and then in half so the ends match. Press some more for good measure, it's very important they're even.
  

For my husband's keychain I made self-binding for the loop bit but this way is much faster and you're not sewing through quite so many layers. If you do want to use fabric instead of ribbon, use your legendary math skillz to cut a piece of fabric that once edge-finished, is still 1" wide by 4" long.

• Slip the raw bottom edge of the pocket inside the folded-over ribbon and pin in place.
  

• Turn sideways and make sure the top edges of the ribbon are even.

• Sew a boxed X to secure, making sure that it captures the fold in the ribbon at the top and extends slightly lower than the raw edges of the pocket within the ribbon sandwich.

• Slip on your key ring and admire.

• Hide some money in there so your husband can't steal it.

• You can even hide folded paper money in there for your 'Run Away from Home' fund:

• You're done! Go post it in the Flickr group.
  

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