A Funky Camera Strap For Me!

A while back, I saw these gorgeous camera straps on Michelle Allen’s (older) Close2myArt blog.

They inspired me to want to make on of my own, in my own style, but I just never seemed to get around to it.

Flash forward to this week, when I once again dislocated my patella (knee cap) – a mere 5 days before my yoga retreat! *sigh* I needed to stay off my feet for a few days, and thought it was the perfect opportunity to give the strap a go. First things first, I had to (limpingly) gather my materials.

I dug through my old camera bag and found my 30-ish year old camera (broken) and strap (in good shape). I then dug through my fabric scraps bin and pulled out the fabrics that pleased me most and kind of went together. Then, in a “crazy quilt” fashion, I just started sewing chunks together – trimming them to fit a piece of cardboard that I had measured to be twice the width of the strap + two seam allowances. I sewing machined pieces together, including top-stitching the seams. I disassembled the strap so that I could make the strip of fabric long enough to reach end-to-end + seam allowances.

Next, I dug out my embroidery thread – including some new Aunt Lydia’s Crochet Thread that I picked up to try (it fared very well, I might add). And then I just started stitching – both at the seams, and on each chunk of fabric in random places.

The results were quite pleasing to me. In fact, if I ever need to sit still for a long time ever again, I might even try making a blanket like this (or some clothing?) some day. =)

Next, I had to attach the fabric to the strap. I wanted the cover to be snug rather than loose, so instead of making a tube to put over the strap (which would have had to have been big enough to fit over the metal parts, thus making it loose…), I decided to hand-stitch it on. Using the stitching already on the strap (so I wouldn’t have to stitch through the leather-like strap itself), I folded one of the seam allowances over the edge and tacked it on. When I finished the length of the strap, I wrapped the fabric around the strap, folded the other seam allowance over, and blanket stitched the edge of it to the existing edge.

I took out my new-ish camera and removed the existing strap that everybody seems to have (yippie – now I have yet another strap I could embellish!)

I then reassembled the embellished strap pieces and attached it all to my camera. Ooooh… Aaaah…

I absolutely lovelovelove the new look!!! Not only does the beauty/funkiness of it make me smile, but nobody will ever confuse my camera for theirs!

Woo-hoo!!! Now… let’s see if it does anything to improve the quality of my photo taking. 😉