Bow Your Neck

Hello, this is Manja from Spilled Milk! The lovely and talented Emma gave me the chance to write a guest post for her blog and I was more than willing to do so! Isn't her little Peter the cutest?
After deciding not to continue with my old style blog, I started a new one recently which is mainly about food, photography and I also want to incorporate DIY projects in it. I think DIYs are awesome ways to create your own, individual accessories, decorations and many other things!

About two weeks back, I saw a necklace at H&M that I really loved. It was a huge bow necklace made of shiny black fabric. Since I coincidentally had some black fabric at home, I gave it a try and made my own.

This is what you'll need:
*A piece of fabric of your choice (16" by 9")
*A piece of fabrice of your choice (10" by 2")
*Two jump rings
* Some chain
*A small pair of pliers

This is the fabric I used. But you can use whatever one you like, of course!

First of all, you have to fold the bigger piece of fabric in half, so that the inside is turned out and pin the long side together.

Then, sew along the edge that you just secured with the pins.

Repeat these last steps on one of the short sides of the fabric and sew it together. Then, turn the fabric inside out, so that the shiny part of the fabric is on the outside and only one side is left open.

Fold in both edges of the open side and pin both layers of fabric together, just as in the previous steps. Sew together but try to stay as close to the edge of the fabric as possible .

Now, you will need the smaller piece of fabric.

First of all, you have to hem the seams of the shorter sides of the fabric, so that it will all look neat once you're done.

Once you are finished with that, fold in the lower and also the upper long sides of the fabric. Make sure that the shiny part of the fabric is still on the outside! Then, fold the piece of fabric again in the middle. This step can be a little bit tricky.

This is what it should look like. Now you need to pin the edges of the fabric together and sew them together. Once again, make sure to sew as close to the edge as possible!

This is, what we've got so far.

Gather the fabric of the larger piece in the middle. Then, drape the thin piece of fabric around the middle and secure it by tucking its end underneath the draping. Now you can either secure it by sewing it together by hand or by using glue. I picked the lazy alternative and glued it together.

Yay, the bow is finished!

Now, you need to poke one jump ring through the left peak (would you call it a bow 'peak'? I highly doubt that word exists) and also through the right peak of the bow and attach the chain to them before closing the jump rings using pliers. Before you attach the chain, you should decide how long you want the necklace to be. Just put the chain around your neck beforehand and hold the bow up to the ends to see how long the necklace will be in the end. I also decided not to use a clasp because I can just pull it over my tiny head.

And voilá - the finished product!

It is a really nice and easy DIY and I am contemplating whether I should make more big bow necklaces! Mh...how 'bout a polka dot one?