To christen the new camera, I had to make a camera strap for it. Or rather, recover the Nikon strap that came with it. I really loved my old camera strap in Zain Liberty of London. Rather than remake that one (which I considered), I thought it best to have a fresh start with a fresh new fabric. I knew the fabric needed to be rather dark, as it would probably get a bit dirty. The reproduction fabric I chose from the Regency Collection was the perfect fit. The print is so unusual and I love the mix of black with bits of odd pink, green and blue.

I had to refer to my original blog post about making my first camera strap to refresh my memory on just how to do it. This project is so easy and the results are totally satisfying. I love the final step of sewing through the strap around and around in concentric rectangles. I just used the edge of my presser foot as a guide for the spacing, which is why my sewing looks so straight.

I am now quite bonded with my new Nikon D90. It’s a heck of a lot of camera, so I have a lot to learn still. My latest discovery was learning to customize the picture controls. I keep the manual beside my bed, so I can dip into it before I fall asleep.

Liberty of London Summer Challenge : Project #1
Camera Strap in ‘Zain’ Tana Lawn Cotton

My first Liberty of London project is a simple one, but damn, does it ever make me happy. When I got my Nikon camera last year, the first thing I wanted to do was make myself a new camera strap. I cringed every time I looked at that black and yellow strap.

I planned on making a new strap from scratch and this is likely one of the reasons why this project was so slow to get off the ground. As I thought about where I would get all the right hardware to do this properly last week, I realized that it would be much much easier to just re-cover the existing strap. Sometimes there’s no need to go building something from scratch when you can just hitch a ride on something that works perfectly fine.

How could I resist having a posh Liberty of London camera strap? I chose the print called ‘Zain‘, which seems to be perfectly suited to being a camera strap, don’t you think?

Since this project requires only a small strip of fabric (approx. 4″ x 20″), it hardly seemed painful at all to cut into this precious fabric. I cut the fabric along the selvedge so that I could use the finished fringe as my exposed edge. I ironed fusible interfacing on the back to make it a bit sturdier. Next, I pressed a small fold along the two short sides and then put a layer of ‘Steam a Seam 2′across the back of the fabric. I carefully wrapped the strip around the existing camera strap, overlapping the fabric with the selvedge edge showing. Using a hot iron, I pressed the fabric covering the strap to activate the ‘Steam a Seam 2′ and glue the fabric to the strap. The last step was to sew/quilt concentric rectangles along the length of the strap to secure the fabric to the strap.

I’m so happy. It’s the prettiest camera strap I’ve ever seen and it will be perfect for Paris. We leave a week today!