"Business" Card Holders

First, let's be clear about one thing: I don't have business cards; I have retirement cards.

I am soon going to a mini-reunion with some dear friends from school many moons ago. I decided to make a gift for each of my friends. This time the gift will be "business" card holders.

I used some fabric from a Kaffe Fassett collection. I just love his bright, cheerful designs. I found the directions here: Directions for Business Card Holder

The directions were good, but I still had to work at it to get it to come out well. I had to make several trips to various stores to find the right kind of hairbands, the fusible fleece, and the buttons.

I made a lot of mistakes on my prototype. It probably took around five hours what with all the ripping out of stitches. It took me a lot of time to figure out what combinations of fabric to use for each holder, what color thread, what color buttons, etc.

I wanted to use my machine's monogramming stitch (I have a Janome Memory Craft 6500). This added a level of complexity.  After some trial and error I figured out using a tear-away stabilizer would help.

I had to make sure the monogramming would contrast sufficiently with the fabric. I'm not sure I always succeeded with that.

I also had to measure carefully to figure out where to place the monogramming. I first used a scrap of a quilt sandwich to practice the monogramming. Surprisingly, the dimensions of the monogrammed lines were different on the quilt sandwich than on the unquilted card pocket pieces. More ripping out.
Eventually I got them centered, but half of them are probably not fully centered.

I really liked the fusible fleece. It is really more like a batting than a fleece. It fuses very easily and smoothly. I wonder if I could use it on a larger quilt project?

I had a few sewing machine disasters along the way. Something happened with my bobbin case and it got chewed up a little, but I got it working again. Also, at one point a pin fell into the feed dogs and while I was trying to fish it out it went all the way in. Apparently no harm, no foul.

Once I got to the point where the pieces were assembled and turned inside out, I had a lot of trouble with the top-stitching. Then I remembered my trusty old walking foot. It worked like a dream.

When I finally produced a decent result I decided to take an assembly-line approach for the rest. This project had so many changes of thread and feet and stitches, and stitch lengths that it really did save a lot of time to do it in this fashion.

I am pretty happy with the end result:

Phew! The card fits!

They are all different!

Lessons Learned:

Multiply the time estimated for the project by at least three.
Add three extra trips to the store.
Make a practice piece before you waste materials.
Use a light fabric where you plan to monogram.
Remember the walking foot!