Thursday, January 1, 2009

Sew Those Korkers!

I've often referred to myself as the Queen of Live and Learn, because I do things, think it's easy, then find a better way.

Take my korker bows for example. Follow all the steps right up to the part where I tell you to tie them together. You see, tying them all together works, and it's easy! That is until your two year old gets bored and finds her korker bow is way more fun when all the curls can be pulled out. And then you have ribbon korkers strewn across your home and a child with no bow.

With that said, I'm here to encourage you to sew those korkers!

For this I just grabbed a few korkers I had left over from Halloween, so today - the FIRST DAY of 2009 - you get a festive orange korker! It might be a good idea to have about 24+ korkers on hand. They seem to make a nice round bow.


Don't forget the needle and thread. For this I doubled it up to make it stronger.


Tie a knot about 5-6 inches up from the end. As you can see I tried three different times to get the knot to double. And it just wasn't happening.


Take one korker, find the middle and press it onto the needle.


Push the korker all the way down to your fingers, but keeping it on the needle.


Add a second korker and have it go in a different direction.


As you place the korkers on the needle try and fan them out as you go.


Soon you'll have them all on and a tiny tip of the needle left.


Go ahead and slide the bunch off the needle and onto the thread.


Gently slide them all down to the knot. Be careful because if you push too hard against that knot you'll lose korkers - like I said, "Queen of Live and Learn".


Now, turn that needle around and go back through the korkers. You can try to bunch them together and push hard, but that can get a little dangerous. So I like to keep my korkers semi-loose and go back through in sets of 2 or 3.


If you want those korkers to be extra secure go through two more times.


Once your two ends of the thread are on the same end, trim off the needle and tie the ends together to tighten the korkers up.


And don't forget that double knot!


Finally, with your fingers, play with the curls and get them to fluff up just a little.


And now you have a korker that little fingers can't pull apart! YAY!

1 comment:

Jami Ray said...

So cute, I just bought dowels yesterday to make some of these bows. Thanks for the sewing tip.