Teething Necklace Tutorial

Hey Guys, today I have a guest post for you from my cousin. So without further ado, take it away Erica!

This is Norah. We call her "the animal". The other day as I was sitting watching her gnaw on the edge of my coffee table I thought to myself, "self, this girl needs something better to chew on. Something that her big brother can't snatch out of her hand and throw at her head every five seconds." So I got my hiney off my couch and ran down to my local craft store to pick up a couple of supplies.

Material: cute fabric (I bought half a yard, that was way more than necessary!)
             coordinating ribbon
             wooden beads, I used 1in. beads

Tools: Sewing machine
          Scissors
          Iron (optional)

Nothing I do is ever precise, so in true form, to measure my fabric I folded it a couple of times to give myself a more manageable length, selected the size bead I was going to use, folded the fabric over the bead, and marked where I needed to cut to allow myself a small seam allowance. Again, I don't do the measuring thing so I don't know exactly how much of an allowance I left myself, just cut for what you are comfortable working with, I trimmed excess off after.

After I cut the fabric I opened it up and folded the right sides together so that I could sew a big long tube. I then cut off the excess fabric from the seam and ironed it so that the fabric would lay flat on the seam and not cause any bunching once I started putting the beads in and tying knots. Now comes the longest part of the project, turning your 42ish inch tube right side out. I didn't do this the smartest way so it took me approximately  3/4 of an episode of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood.

Once you are seeing the pretty side of your fabric again tie a knot about 5 inches from the end. Drop a bead in the other end and tie another knot tightly against the bead so that it can not move around. Drop another bead, tie another knot...you get the picture. Every couple of beads I would wrangle the animal and kind of measure how it was looking for length and decided that 7 was our magic number, pick whichever number makes you happiest. End like you began, with another knot.

Line the two end knots up to each other and then snip off some fabric to make them even, sorry, still no measurements! Fold the ends in a little to give yourself a clean edge. Cut two lengths of ribbon, long enough to tie a bow and to give yourself the desired length of the necklace. Cut one end at an angle to prevent it from fraying. Put the flat end of your ribbon into the tube of fabric, I put my ribbon all the way down to the knot so that I would know I had plenty of length to catch when I was sewing it in. Fold the fabric over so that it is only as wide as the ribbon, like so.

And then sew across to hold it in place, which also help to extra secure the wooden beads so that they can't pop out and choke an animal...or the animal. I had to help mine through a little since it is kind of bulky from a couple of layers of fabric plus the ribbon. Just go slowly, and watch out for your fingers, it would be a shame to get blood on your necklace after all the work you just put in! Voila!

All that's left to do is try it on yourself and decide whether to give this baby up to the baby or tell yourself you'll make another for her real soon...