Nametag Holder for PR Weekend

I'm heading to Chicago on Thursday for the Pattern Review Weekend - a conference of sorts for sewers. I've watched with envy all the fun everyone has had in weekends past and decided to bite the bullet and join the great group of ladies! They are expecting a record crowd this time with just over 100 attendees.

Weekend activities include organized shopping trips at various fabric and notion stores, sewing lectures / discussions, and a private meeting with the Lieutenant Governor of Illinois, Sheila Simon who is an accomplished sewer! She even sewed her inaugural suit and gown for the inaugural ball! Of course there will be lots of food and cocktails and socializing in between and I can't wait to meet some of the bloggers I've been following for a long time!

One of the optional aspects is to create a nametag holder for the conference. I think there are even prizes for various categories - most bling, largest, etc. Someone mentioned batteries!! Now, I can follow a pattern pretty well but I'm not very creative so when I read about that, I decided I would pass. But while I was at a work conference last week, I was sitting in a session wondering why they always make the nametag lanyards so long. Mine hung down to my waist and I don't need colleagues looking at my stomach when they're trying to remember my name.

As I sat there pondering this and twirling around my nametag (it was a boring session!), I had the thought that if the lanyards were elasticized, they could be shorter and still fit over heads. Which gave me the idea for my simple lanyard. This is certainly not going to win me any prizes but at least it won't clash with my outfits! :-) BTW, where you see my name is where our actual nametags would go. I thought it made sense to put my name in there for example but I realize now it simply looks stupid. LOL

Because it's black, it's a little difficult to see but here is what I did. Made a long tube, finished width approximately 1 1/4". Stitched a tunnel down the middle and inserted a piece of elastic. Stitch it closed and stitched onto a split ring. Made a 1" ruffle piece out of coordinating fabric and glued to the back of the plastic nametag holder. And because I can never leave well enough alone, I added a little yoyo with a bow on top. This holder was recycled from last week's conference.