Black Friday and Cyber Monday are in the past… and yet you didn’t find the perfect Christmas gifts. Luckily, I’ve got an amazing DIY for everyone; for whoever loves yoga to everyone who loves picknicks or high teas in the park. And the best thing is… it is easy to make! It will definitely be ready in time even for all the holiday stress starts… Let’s make some yoga mat straps or plaid straps!!
What do you need:
- A piece of leather to cut your straps from (or you could buy pre-cut straps)
- A strap cutter or Stanley knife and ruler.
- Mallet
- For sewing:
- Thread Two needlesPricking ironWing divider
- For using rivets:
- 4 rivets + rivet setting tool
- 2x Sam Brown or mushroom head screw rivets
- Hole punches ( I used 6mm, 2.5 mm for the keyholes and 3 mm for the rivet)
Step 1 – cutting straps
I know, I usually only show you the pre-cut pieces in the DIY but this time I wanted to show you how I do this. To cut straps I use a strap cutter which cuts straps with a certain width, according to your settings, on a straight edge. If this edge is not straight, your strap won’t be either. So make sure you’ve cut this with a long ruler for example. I’ve cut a strap of 110 cm for over your shoulder and 2 straps of 55 cm around the plaid or yoga mat. If
Step 2 – One side of the round straps
The straps that go around your plaid or yoga mat need to be locked to the other side in a certain manner. I’ve chosen for the Sam brown mushroom had rivets in a keylock hole but you could also go for a small buckle. To attach the Sam Brown you first punch a small hole in the strap where the screw-thread-part fits snugly. After that, it is just simple, screw on the top and you’re done with this step. If you want to be really sure it doesn’t go anywhere. You could add a drop of glue in between.
Step 3 – The other side of the round strap
On the other side of the strap, I wanted to make a key-lock hole. So there for you can make a big and a small hole and connect the two. This shape will lock the mushroom head rivet in the smaller part while it also has the room to fit through the bigger hole. The only thing you have to pay attention to is the direction of the force. I want to lock the mushroom head rivet towards the end of the strap so my smaller hole has to be on the right of the bigger one, as shown in the image above.
Next, you can connect the two holes with a Stanley knife and a ruler. Find the outer edge of the smallest hole and cut straight to the bigger hole. The final result should look something like the image above. Repeat step 2 and 3 for the other smaller strap.
Step 4 – The shoulder strap
The two smaller straps, which keep the plaid or yoga mat into place, are connected by the shoulder strap. There are two options to make this shoulder strap. By either sew the loop or attach it by rivets, around the smaller straps. In this DIY I show you how I’ve done it by rivets.
Measure the length of the loop around the smaller straps and punch one or two holes through both sides. A rivet consists of two parts; one with a hole and one with a stalk. Put the stalk through the holes and use a rivet setter or spindle machine to set the rivet, as shown in the image below. Repeat this this on the other side aswell.
Step 5 – Instal the straps around!
The last and final step is to put it to use and strap the straps around your yoga mat or plaid. And you are good to go! Wasn’t that easy? It would also be an amazing Christmas gift so maybe you should make a few extra! Below some more pictures of the final result.
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