Lanyard Tutorial!

hi guys!


Got Craft? is less than a week away now, and i have a ridiculous pile of keychains taking over my sewing table - i made way more than i needed to, but i couldn't decide which fabrics to use!


it's obviously cutting it hella close for another tutorial, but for those of you playing along at home, i wanted to post about the lanyards we've been making. they're great stocking stuffers, or quick gifts for coworkers (i made 15 xmas themed lanyards one year), and they're a fun way to include a bit of your favourite quilting fabrics in your day to day life!





calling this a tutorial is a bit of a lie, honestly, cause lanyards are the same as keychains, minus the interfacing, just made with longer strips of fabric.


to make a lanyard you need:
3.25" x WOF strip of fabric (Width Of Fabric usually works out to about 40")
a key ring
matching thread


that's it, easy peasy! just follow the keychain tutorial, skipping the interfacing step. i chose not to use it in these, though you could use a lightweight if you wanted. i don't find interfaced lanyards comfy, so i didn't bother. and if you wanted to make a fancier lanyard, you could use 3.25" wide pieces of fabric and piece together your 40" length!


i've seen a lot of lanyards around using fancy hooks that twirl, and i have to say, as someone who wore a lanyard every day for work for years, i HATE the fancy hooks. the main benefit of them seems to be that they twirl, which you think is cool, but it's actually a huge pain in the ass. much like how toast always lands jelly side down, your ID tag is always backwards whenever someone wants to see it. always!


i've also seen some lanyards that are shorter, and while i do like the way they look visually, i prefer the 40" length if you work at a desk, so that your tag isn't right at the height of your keyboard. if you wear a short lanyard and lean forward too often, your plastic ID tag will eventually break in half. ask me how i know!


we decided to use the key rings for the craft fair for multiple reasons. one, because they're cheap. the best price i found was at michaels (and yes, i'm just as surprised as you are! using a 40% off coupon, they ended up being really reasonable.) because folks were making everything for the craft fair out of their own stash, we didn't want to make everyone buy fancy hooks and two, on a similar note, key rings are readily available, whereas to get a decent price on hooks, we'd have had to order them online. the only places i found them locally were sold in packs of one or two at fabric stores, and they were too pricey. with the key rings, members could pick them up at michaels, at walmart, at tandy leather, at dollar stores, etc.


for the lanyards we're selling, we're including these plastic snap thingys that hold an ID tag, because i happened to have a ton of them in my stash. if you're making them yourself, you probably have a thingy on your old lanyard, or you can get whatever variation works best for your tags from your workplace. our security office always seemed to have tons of them!





so that's my non-tutorial for lanyards. for something so basic, i've apparently put a lot of thought into them!