Fabric necklace

On Friday, most of the Thursday patchwork group friends got together for an extra day of sewing.  Mrs. Furui wants to make 20 heart pouches for the hospital bazaar and so 6 of us spent most of the day cutting, sewing zippers, trimming and turning our scrap fabric and batting into little bags.  For all our work we only got 10 made that day.

Mrs. Furui has about 5 bazaar projects going on at one time and though I'm willing to help her, I think she is extending herself a bit.  Still.... She is enthusiastic about any sewing and her enthusiasm is catching.  She had strips of fabric and grosgrain ribbon laid out for ANOTHER project and peering into the box my curiosity got the best of me.

"And WHAT are you making here?"

"Necklaces!  Tanya, look at this fabric.  Someone donated a box of Liberty fabric and I found this great pattern for making necklaces.  Do you know how much fancy boutiques are selling these necklaces for?  $40!"

We all put aside our heart pouch sewing in favor for some necklace making.

First a bias strip of Liberty fabric.  Liberty is nice because it is that delicate cotton lawn fabric.  I am thinking that one could make necklaces from left over silk kimono fabric... or maybe a keepsake father's tie that no one can bear to toss out...

I'm sorry, I didn't measure the fabric.  It looks like about two inches wide... The length... maybe about a yard.  I sewed two shorter strips together on the sewing machine to make a long strip.

Once the strip is made, sew right sides together making a long tube.

After inserting a yard (or less) of grosgrain ribbon, gather one end of the tube and sew the ribbon and the tube end together by hand securely.  Then pull on the ribbon and turn the tube right side out.

Now for the beads.  Mrs. Furui was using wooden beads but she also had some cheapy plastic ones that were good enough for me.  The wooden beads make the fabric smooth but one can hardly see the difference.  (Mrs. Furui was also using her children's stringing beads from when they were toddlers.  Her three sons are 23 to 29 years old nowadays.)

Insert a bead into the tube.  Tie the tube into a tight knot.  Insert another bead.  Tie another knot.  I used 6 plastic beads....6 larger wooden beads... and then 6 plastic beads again.

The knots need to be quite tight to make the bead snug in there...  When all the beads are tied in, gather the end of the tube, insert the other end of the grosgrain ribbon and sew securely.  Cut the ribbon where you like. (Offset a bit brings the feminine ribbon to the front.)

I really like the way the stripe fabric goes swirly when made into a necklace!  Well I didn't pay $40 but I left Mrs. Furui $5 for beads and ribbon materials (with the condition that I would participate in supplying the hospital shop with more sewn goods.)  Give it a try?