Crafting Tuft: Turning

If you sew, at some point, you have had to turn something inside out. If you sew very small things, this can be challenging. In fact, I have a theory that the smaller the thing is that you are turning inside out...the larger your vocabulary of colorful expletives.

I sew bags. Bags have straps. Straps are small. Ergo, my vocabulary was getting too large.

There are special tools made just for this activity and they don't cost much, but I have recently become fairly adept at using stuff from around the house and garage to get the job done. Here are my tricks:

When I start to sew the sides of a strap, I sew an old piece of cord with some scrap material on the end into the strap, by sandwiching it between the two pieces of material (that are currently right sides together):

Then I sew across the end of the strap, catching the cord in the stitch line:

Next, I sew down the other side of the strap, taking care NOT to catch the cord into the stitch line:

Here's the strap with the cord hanging down from the closed end:

Go to the store for a turning tool? Not a chance, when I can find a simple screwdriver!

Using the screwdriver, I carefully push the sewn cord end of the strap back into the strap itself:

This works to get it started, but then I have to switch to a longer household tool...the paintbrush:

The paintbrush works great and I can get just about all of the strap pushed back through itself on the handle of the paintbrush:

If you think this looks weird...you are not alone. (Hey, it works though and there is much, MUCH less swearing!) You can just see the top of the right side of the strap being pushed through the top now and this is where the cord comes in handy. I gently pull on the cord, which easily pulls the strap right side out, snip off the end, and...