Fabric Curly-Cue Ribbon {Tutorial}

The other night I was packaging up some gifts and orders that needed to be shipped out. Usually when I package up my gifts and orders I place them into a drawstring bag that I have made. I first started doing that with my bibs and large orders and have decided to do this with my jewelry sales as well. (I guess sewing is still my love, since I spend more time sewing these little bags then making the pieces of jewelry.) Anyhow, I was working through my scrap pile when I decided to use long skinny strips of fleece as my ties. But when I cut the long strips of fleece and pulled on them to string them through the bag they immediately turned into these sweet little curly-cue ribbons. Oh yes, I was giddy as any crafty momma would be. This is kinda like that cheap plastic rolls of ribbon that you buy in the store and use your scissors to curl…but waay cuter! So you wanna make some too?

Just grab a piece of fleece. I used anti-pill fleece. I’m not sure if this works with regular fleece as well, sorry but I didn’t have any regular fleece to try it on. You don’t need a very wide piece of fleece since you will be cutting off a very skinny piece. And as far I could tell, once the fabric is pulled it at least doubles in length, if not more.
Now line up the fabric so that it stretches vertically when pulled on. When you pull on the fleece horizontally it should not stretch.
Now grab your rotary cutter and cut a tiny little strip. I cut mine about 1/8 of an inch by about 10″ or so.
Now hold the top of the strip and slowly pull on it starting from the top to the bottom. That is it, easy right? Now you have some cute fabric curly-cue ribbon to tie around those homemade packages. Unfortunately the curly-cues don’t last forever…I know, stinker! The more I played with the ribbon the more the curls started to get larger and eventually became wavy. But luckily you are left with a cute little fleece cord. Either way, I think it is a great way to use up fleece scraps and add a cute little curly-cue to your gifts.
This definitely adds a whole new way of wrapping gifts with curly-cues without using that cheap looking plastic ribbon.