Mini-Tutorial - Padded Camera Strap Cover

I'm sure I've mentioned that I'm on another round of Ro-Accutane. It's made my skin very dry and around my neck it's super sensitive and the slightest discomfort soon turns into burning.
The camera strap on my DSLR has rubber grippy things on one side and the other is hard woven stuff that also burns, so after suffering a whole day of it, I came home and looked at padded camera straps on etsy. Have you seen how expensive they are?! Yikes!
So I made myself this one:
And proudly showed it to Buzz, who was all like, "Oh Wow, that's awesome!", then immediately: "Can you make one for me?"
So I took pics this time around (comfortably!) - it's black Moda Marble so a bit hard to see, but I assure you the instructions are so simple my kid could make one.

1. Measure the length of your strap and add 1" (for Seam Allowance).
    Measure the width of the strap, multiply by 2, and add 1.25" for Seam Allowance (So if it's 2" wide, you'll need the pieces to be 5.25" wide.)
2. Cut two pieces of fabric using the measurements you've just calculated (mine was about 25" long by 6.25" wide.
Cut ONE piece of fusible batting, but you'll need to trim off about 1/2" off of each side - if you want, you can wait a bit and cut it to your exact needs in a minute.
3. Take your 2 pieces of fabric RST and sew down the long sides, just shy of 1/2" Seam Allowance:

Here's a close up:

4. Now you need to fuse your fusible batting to one of those sides - if you haven't trimmed it yet, do that now by trimming the sides of the batting just a bit smaller than the space between your seams. It needs to have about 1/2" trimmed off the top and bottom, too. See picture below:

5. After it's been fused and cooled down, turn it all right side out (RSO). Then fold the raw edges in by 1/2", like in the picture:

6. Pin the openings shut, with raw edges carefully tucked in. Stitch the edge, as shown in the next two pictures:

7. Now we're going to make the sleeve. Fold the piece in half lengthways. Make sure if you edgestitch it shut you will be able to fit it over your camera strap. 

If you're happy, pin it down the length as shown below, and edgestitch:

8. Admire your work, then slip it onto your camera strap:

Ta-Da!

If you make one, I'd love to see it! And you're always welcome to add it to the SewHappyGeek Flickr group!

© J C Excell, 2011You are welcome to use any SewHappyGeek tutorial for personal use. You are even welcome to make a couple to sell, but you are not given permission to use my pictures or my words without giving me credit and linking back to the original. Sometimes my pictures have my family in them and they are never intended for public use. Also, I work very hard to provide free tutorials for my lovely readers, and anyone copying or selling my tutorials is guilty of copyright infringement.