Sewing a Card Holder (Wristband)

«Grego’s doing math in his head right now,» said Olhado, «so he’s functionally dead. But yes. I think he’s on to something– he was shouting and dancing a minute ago. We had a sewing-machine experience.» «Ah,» said Valentine. «It’s an old science-class story,» said Olhado. «People who wanted to invent sewing machines kept failing because they always tried to imitate the motions of hand-sewing, pushing the needle through the fabric and drawing the thread along behind through the eye at the back end of the needle. It seemed obvious. Until somebody first thought of putting the eye in the nose of the needle and using two threads instead of just one. A completely unnatural, indirect approach that when it comes right down to it, I still don’t understand.»
«Xenocide» by Orson Scott Card

We have an RFID key card system at work. I much preferred the earlier physical key system, especially considering that you can easily create work and movement profiles with digital keys. Much more hesitant to work on the weekends since it was introduced. But, yeah. After going through a few ideas on how to carry the card, I decided to use a sweatband (the one with these small zipper pockets). What works for a credit or membership card works very well for RFID cards.

However, sweatbands to become a bit warm in the summer, and after trying out sewing, I used sewing a sweatband as one of my first projects. I used some kind of jersey fabric (if I remember correctly) which stretches a bit and a jersey needle for the sewing machine. Ah, and I did use a lightning stitch (as the material stretches). But hey, there are likely easier ways to do this, so no warranty.

The steps itself are simple:

Created a sewing template (left). It’s 23 x 23 cm and used it to cut the jersey fabric.
It’s much easier to sew the velcro first. Just sew it on the left (wrong) side of the fabric. It prefer the raw velcro on the arm side.
Small clamps work much better for me than needles. At least when it comes to sewing (SCNR 😉 ).
Velcro is sewn on the fabric.
I wanted a nice decoration and this is the best moment to sew it — just mark it with chalk and sew it.
Ornaments are sewn.
Now sew it on the left (wrong) side. Leave about 1 cm space at the ends.
Sewn on the left (wrong) side.
Okay, the next step is a bit hard to explain. Connect the velcro first, then turn it inside out so the ends match and the right side is outside. This allows you to see how it should look like. Then notice which parts still need to be connected. Mark them, turn it outside in again and sew these parts.
The sewn wristband. Made the underside a bit smaller.
Worn on the wrist.
Used the underside to make it tighter (near the hand). Should have done it before (rather at lot of fabric over each other), but for a prototype, it works.

The result is still a prototype (haven’t it tested for a week yet), the underside and the borders are kinda crappy, but still. It seems to work.