Access, Entrance, Passage, Route, Way Admittance: All words related to key. That's where I found myself when an un invited visitor showed up in my house. He had found access or passage and it caused the delivery of this key. At some time we have all been there. Life is normal and then you either find evidence or you see the culprit and life changes. A mission of who stays and who goes begins. A very quick call to the pest control company and the installation of a couple of these.
I learned a lot that day about mice and how very intuitive they are. Did you know that they count their footsteps? Each right step and each left step. They will travel a route and then backtrack several times to make sure it is safe. They will also follow a trail of previous mice into your house. This one had done just that. We had trapped another one a few weeks prior and thought it was over. Smart little guys. I am not a hard hearted person and usually love animals, but my love draws the line here. The instructions on our new mouse traps and the key introduced a problem for me. How do I keep up with this key because there is poison contained in the traps and another key added to our numerous others may end up somewhere in the back of a drawer never to be found even with my best intentions. So I decided to use my fabric scraps and make a Keyfob.
I am always trying new things with my embroidery machine. When I purchased it, part of the package contained a disk full of designs. I decided on a mouse with cheese that seemed pretty fitting for the Keyfob. If you are interested in downloading the design you can click here. There is a very small download fee but all of the designs I have used on the disk have stitched up very well. This site has so many to choose from you may find yourself sitting all day and browsing instead of crafting. As I have said before, I save pretty much all of my scraps. If they are too small to sew with, I use them to stuff with. I keep them in plastic bags. If I have been lucky enough to purchase something that comes in a plastic bag with a zipper, I always save these for stashing my smaller craft items.
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As I am sewing I keep a large bowl out that lets me quickly throw in the scraps. Once it fills up, I can organize all of the scraps into a plastic bag. and keep it for future use in a rollabout.
The key fob came together very easily. I chose a plain white cotton to do the design on. After it completed stitching, I used a felt lining material and then a brown polyester for the back. I cut all three layers the same size. When it was time to stitch them, the felt was placed on the bottom and then the two outer fabrics were laid on top with their right sides together. I stitched around the perimeter in a circle leaving one side open to turn after cutting the square edges off with pinking shears. An invisible ladder stitch was used to close the open seam. I then changed my stitch to a small Zigzag and created a small square to insert the key ring into. This is similar to sewing a buttonhole as the Zigzag stitch will keep the fabric from raveling. Once complete, I had a really cute key fob that will not get lost, misplaced or forgotten.
If you would like to see my process, click through the slideshow below. I hope you have enjoyed this post, share what you learn and are generous with what you make. Someone will appreciate your hard work.
