New Tutorial: Tie the Knot Key Fobs

One morning last week it was time to run the car pool: go get my daughter’s best friend and take them to pre-school… then on to the elementary school… and my keys were nowhere to be found. After 10 minutes of frantically searching everywhere that I might have set my keys (and asking Cadie a million times ‘did you move mommy’s keys?’), I remembered that I have a spare car key. I grabbed it from the junk drawer and ran. Then as I was driving I realized that I needed a key ring for this precious key. Floating around the junk drawer was just too dangerous.

My first thought was something like this. Stretchy, easy to spot, and easy to hang up. But I can’t sew this and I don’t really love plastic. I would much rather have something I made.

This is what I came up with: soft and stretchy key fobs! I love these because when you tie the {cute} knot, you can make it any size. Make it perfect for your wrist, or for a smaller wrist that needs a house key that won’t get lost. This project is very easy and quick. The supplies are all easy to get.

For each Tie the Knot Key Fob, you will need 15” of 1” wide fold over elastic (FOE). Don’t you love my candy jar full?  Sweet! You’ll also need matching thread and a snap clip for a 1/2”-5/8” wide strap. If you like mine, I listed extra in the SewCanShe Shop {here}. Sorry my FOE candy jar is off limits! 🙂

Cut one 15” piece of FOE for each key fob. If you are only making one, that’s all you’ll need. But I couldn’t stop at one, of course.

Slide your FOE through the snap clip strap opening. Don’t worry if the elastic is too wide now. Prepare your sewing machine to sew on elastic: Insert a ball point needle if you have one and use a stretch stitch. Finding my machine’s stretch stitch takes too long, so I generally go with a zig zag with a width of 1 and length of 3. This will prevent your thread from breaking when the key fob stretches.

Sew the ends right sides together with a 1/4” seam allowance. The right side is the softer side (or the shinier side, depending on your FOE).

Then finger-press the seam allowance open and fold the elastic lengthwise, wrong sides together. 

Now sew all the way around close to the open edge of the elastic. I like to sew right on the edge, and it doesn’t really matter if the right side of the zig zag doesn’t always catch elastic.

Place the short seam right where you want the knot to be and next to your hand. Then (if you tie knots like me) the seam will be hidden when you make the knot. I can’t really explain how I tie knots or photograph it, but if you need to try a different way, no big deal. And you’re done so go make more wrist candy!

Or purse candy. And by the way, we did find those lost keys… in the fridge!

xoxo,