Using Heavy Duty Aluminum Foil for RFID Card Holder with Style and Fashion Fabric

With all the new cards having RFID chips there is a lot of concern about protecting them from skimming. I don't know how much a problem it really is but... it's always good to take precautionary steps, especially when it's something simple to do.



Simply wrapping your card(s) in tinfoil does the trick to protect the signal from being picked up by errant skimmers wandering the streets and malls of our neighbor hood. But, let's face it, wrapping our card(s) in tinfoil is not at all efficient, aesthetic, or realistic in our daily lives.


A year or two ago I played with tinfoil being incorporated into a card holder design that I use a lot to make some awesome card holders. It was a disaster. The holder had to be turned inside out after being sewn and the tinfoil crinkled, crackled, split, and was lumpy and bumpy and a royal pain in the tush. Just a mess!

I have toyed with possible designs since then. All in my head. Quite often when I am trying to fall asleep and my mind is picking up random thoughts instead of relaxing. Then I saw a demo for how to change heavy duty tinfoil from the fragile component it is to almost a fabric. Voila! It all fell into place.



Here are the steps to create a simple yet beautiful credit card holder that offers all the same benefits as wrapping in tinfoil.



You will need:
Sewing machine
scraps of fabric or leather for case shell and for lining.
Strapping/packing tape
Heavy duty aluminum foil
snap

I pulled fabric out of my scrap stash. It was fairly easy to find 5"x7" pieces. I even found a piece of leather in the bag that was big enough for one of these. If you use leather, add walking foot to the list of supplies.

Cut a 5"x7" fashion fabric and a 5"x7" liner fabric.

To create tab, go down 1" from top and over 2" from side and cut the edge off. Do the same for the other side. You can mark it if you want. I just lined up the fabric on the mat and put the ruler at the 1" and 2" marks and cut.



Now, with right sides facing, sew around the pieces. I used a 1/4" seam allowance. Leave a space open at the bottom. You could leave the whole bottom section unsewed but then you won't have the nice corners. At least I wouldn't. Maybe you could. It's just easier to start sewing about an 1" up along the bottom, turn and sew up the side, over the tab, down the other side, turn and sew about 1" along the other side of the bottom. Be sure to back tack when starting and ending.

We'll call this sewn result the envelope.



Be sure to trim the seam allowance along the envelope. I used pinking shears. This is helpful to reduce bulk when sewing up the card holder sides.



Now cut a 4"x7" piece of heavy duty aluminum foil. It has to be .27 microns thick. Reynolds Heavy Duty is thick enough.



Cover the aluminum foil with strapping tape. The kind I have is just shy of 2" wide. I put down a strip along the edge and then a second strip butting right up next to the first strip. Turn it over and cover the other side as well. Trip the tape covered piece of aluminum foil. I use my craft scissors for this, not the precious fabric scissors.



Turn the sewn fabric right side out. Poke out those holes and slide your thumb or a ruler or for the brave, the tips of the scissors, to smooth everything out. Really, you should iron it at this point but I will confess, for this fast, simple, only I will notice, project I did not iron it. If you feel the need to iron, go ahead and iron it.

Trim the top of the aluminum foil to match the shape of the tab. Trim the bottom of the aluminum foil to be just shorter than envelope. When you lay the tape covered foil on top of the envelope it should be about 1/4" thinner all around.



Now, gently bend the tape covered foil to slide it into fabric envelope. I just bring the sides together and leave the curved section between untouched. It should slide as easily as butter. Let go of the sides and nudge it into place.

Now sew the bottom closed. When you were ironing you could have ironed the seam allowance flat and that would be helpful right now. I just fold it in and hold it in place because I have done it thousands of times with many projects. Do a topstitch across the whole length of the bottom of the piece, being sure to sew close enough to the edge to catch the seam allowance.

Next, topstitch the tab. Fold the envelope so that the topstitched bottom is about 1/2" from the start of the tab. Sew the sides. I tried both a saddle stitch and a specialty zig zag stitch. Either works.



Now add a snap and it's done.



Options besides snaps:
If you want you could add a ponytail holder to top of tab before sewing liner and fashion fabric together to create envelope and add a button.
Sew velcro on inside of tab and outside of envelope bottom before sewing sides together.
Add a buttonhole on tab and sew a button on holder.

RFID and Aluminum Foil

When RFID (the chips in credit cards that send out a signal) first starting showing up there was a lot of talk about skimmers being used to snag info from your credit cards in your purse or wallet without you even knowing that someone had stolen that info. But a simple solution to protect your cards' info was to wrap them in tin foil.

Yeah, that's not realistic, is it? Besides looking rather, let's say, horrendous, unpeeling tinfoil from your credit card every time you want to use it isn't really logistically sensible. I decided to try to combine a wallet/card holder with tin foil. That did not work well. At all. In fact, it was quite a disaster.

Besides the tinfoil not wanting to cooperate when turning a sewn fabric wallet inside out... well, that was the stopper actually. After forcing it the tinfoil was so destroyed that the crumply mess was beside the point.

I decided recently to re-visit the RFID tinfoil card holder idea because of the sudden resurgence of cards with RFID chips embedded in them due to the need of credit card companies to have them now, not just an option.

I wracked my brain and wracked my brain for a solution which did not require forcing the tinfoil to be sewn into a wallet/card holder and forced to be turned inside out with the surrounding fabric. I have found a solution!!

There are quite a few discussions on whether tinfoil will even work to block the RFID signal but I have seen reliable articles saying that tinfoil does the trick, as long as it's at least .27mm thick. That's extra heavy duty Reynolds wrap.

So, experimenting begins! When I have the finished product I will post instructions and you can decide if you want to add a little touch of RFID insulation and protection to a card holder that will definitely be more appealing in functionality and aesthetics than simply wrapping your cards in tinfoil but with the same protection against skimmers.

Hint: The little remote shutter release pocket was what gave me the re-inspiration to give RFID protection another try.

Remote Shutter Release Carrying Case

I bought a wireless remote shutter release for my DSLR camera. I went with the off brand instead of the one made by the camera company because I saved $25.00 doing so. I am not sure why there is such a vast difference in price between the off brand and brand model. Less than $6 for off brand and $30 for brand model in local store. All it is is a switch, a signal to camera saying click the shutter. Both versions have instant release and 2 second delay. The one difference is that the brand model came with a little black carrying bag. The kind that is made of material that is that thin, wind breaker kind of fabric. Nothing special. Nothing worth $25.

So, I made a little case.

I had been playing with scraps of fabric and took one of those and added a 2" strip at each end to make up the difference in length. Cut a piece of lining to match size of outer shell. Sewed some velcro on the flap end and on the end tagged for body. Then did the pillowcase sewing. You know, put lining and shell right sides together and sewed around, leaving a 2-3" gap for turning. Then I sewed up the two sides to complete pouch, using a blanket stitch style stitch to catch the edges.

Voila! A lovely, personal pouch for storing the remote shutter release. The strap is a suede iCord attached to a stylish lobster claw. The ring enclosed in the tab sewn into the side is a jewelry finding, not a D ring. The lobster claw won't go over a D ring.

Very handy, very stylish, very economical, and very personal. I like it. Oh, and very simple, quick, and easy to make. I used the dimension from the little plastic bag around the remote shutter release and added seam allowances. It did not need to be as wide as it is but that was the size of the scrap quilting block I had sitting around so that's how wide it is.

Rainforest/Petal Crocodile Stitch Hat Pattern

I literally can't go out in public wearing this hat without someone coming up to me and complimenting me on it. I wear it all the time since making it in December. It's light and doesn't scrunch hair (no hat hair) while still keeping my head warm in deep Minnesota winters. When I first made it I expected it to be a nice spring hat but it's surprisingly warm for as light as it is on my head.

Here's the basic rundown of how I made the hat. Feel free to use pattern for hats you plan to sell but be sure to acknowledge that you got the pattern from Cosmic Pony.

Crochet Hook size 00 (or size E can work)
Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable yarn

Part of the charm of the hat is the yarn weight and color, so stick with this yarn to match pictured results. If you have a favorite yarn you want to use, keep in mind that a heavier yarn will impact appearance as well as gauge.

Gauge: 5 dcs/inch

Start with a Foundation row in multiples of 6. The Foundation stitch is when the chaining and sc rows are worked together at the same time. The benefit of this is a nice, stretchy, finished edge. If you don't know how to make a Foundation row, chain desired number of stitches, slip to join, and sc across for a row.

Create Foundation row of 96 st or 102 st. I initially used 102 for almost all the hats I made but switched to  96 st to tighten it up a bit because over time the hat will stretch out a bit. The difference is minimal and I mention the two numbers because I have a small head so someone with an average head or larger head would prefer the 102 starting number. The best way to find out your initial stitch count is to do 96 and wrap around your head to see if it fits.

After Foundation row, work 1 dc in each st around. 96 (or 102) dc total. Slip to join.

The crocodile stitch has two rounds, the V-stitch round which creates the foundation for the petal stitches and then the petal stitch rounds.

V-stitch Round:
Ch4, dc in same stitch. skip 2 st, *(dc, ch1, dc) in same stitch. skip 2, repeat from * to end. slip into ch4 space to join. (You can slip into 3rd ch but I just slip into the space.)

Petal Round:
Ch3, 3 dc down side of first post of V-stitch, ch1, 4 dc up side of second post of V-stitch. Skip a V-stitch and work 4 dcs down first post of V-stitch, ch1, 4 dcs up second post of V-stitch. Continue working 4 dcs down first post, ch1, and 4 dcs up second post of every other V-stitch. At the end of the round slip into 3rd ch that counted as 1st dc on post of the first V-stitch and also into the V-stitch's ch1 space behind, to join.

V-stitch Round:
Ch4, dc into same stitch. This counts as the first V-stitch for this round. Work a V-stitch (1dc, ch1, 1dc) into center of next petal. (Center is the ch1 space in the V-stitch that creates the base for the petal.) Then V-stitch (1dc, ch1, 1dc) into the space between petals, being sure to insert crochet hook into the ch1 space of the V-stitch that was skipped on the row before. So, when you insert crochet hook into ch1 space be sure to go under the the yarn where the first and last dcs of two petals meet, to catch it. When you reach the end of the round, slip into ch4 space. You will have the same # of V-stitches in every round of V-stitches and same # of petals in every round of petals. The petals will be offset.

Continue working V-stitch rounds and petal rounds until you have completed 9 rows of Petals. Slip to join.

Ch2. Work 96 dcs. Work 2 dc in same stitch, 1 dc into side of 1st dc going down the post, being sure to catch stitch behind petal also, 2 dc in center hole of petal, 1 dc into side of last dc going up the post, 2 dc between petals,. Continue working dcs across last row of petals, slip into 1st dc to join. (ignore ch2 when joining.)

ch2, 5dc, decr, 5dc, decr around. slip to top of 1st dc to join.(ignore ch2 when joining.)

ch2, 3dc, decr, 3dc, decr around. slip to top of 1st dc to join.(ignore ch2 when joining.)

ch2, 2dc, decr, 2dc, decr around. slip to top of 1st dc to join.(ignore ch2 when joining.)

ch2, 2dc, decr, 2dc, decr around. slip to top of 1st dc to join.(ignore ch2 when joining.)

ch2, decr in every st around. slip to top of 1st dc to join.(ignore ch2 when joining.)

ch2, triple decr in every st around. cut yarn, leaving tail, weave yarn through tops of remaining sts and pull tight to close top.

Decreases:
decr: yarn over for dc but only work first step, not second step to complete stitch, which leaves 3 loops on crochet hook. yo, work first step of next dc, yo, pull through all five loops. 2 st have become 1 st.

triple decr:
same as decr but do it over 3 st instead of just 2 st. yarn over for dc but only work first step, not second step to complete stitch, which leaves 3 loops on crochet hook. yo, work first step of next dc, yo, work first step of next dc, pull through all seven loops. 3 st have become 1 st.

I steam blocked these. Blocking really helps finish the hats. Not only does it give the yarn a nice sheen, it pulls everything into place. The petals become crisp and lay flat, as they should. It really makes a difference.