Magnet snap closures using metal bottle caps

Magnet and metal bottle cap found on road

So one of things that are difficult to get here are buttons at least in Singida.  So as I was trying to work through some projects that would require closures I looked at a couple of ideas like strings I could wrap around some type of crochet adornment or actual crochet buttons.  But then I looked at some magnets I have here for science experiments.  I thought-use washers and create a magnet closure.  Those are fine but as I was walking into town one day I saw a bottle cap for an Fanta Passion drink.  HMM!  New idea.  Bottle cap magnet closures.  As with most of my brillant ideas (laugh here if you want) I realize others have done them before and normally I go search online and give them credit but I did not find any with the first couple of looks.

Sew in Bottle cap with logo showing

So basically the idea is simple.  If I am sewing something like a backpack then I want a closure on a pocket that is not hard to open.  Then attach a bottle cap to the covering flap and the magnet to the underneath piece.  For this example I am doing it from scratch.  The sewing is a little rough because I was just trying to show the product.  Some of you with sewing machines that do things like button holes will find those work good for the top piece of the bottle cap piece.

sew magnet in between cloth pieces

Basically I fold the cloth over and sew up the sides to create the flap.  The cut a hole smaller than the bottle cap and as round as possible.  I did not do it in the exercise but to dress it up sew the edge of the circle around the bottle cap.  Then place the bottle cap inside the flap showing the face in the hole you have made then sew around the bottle cap closing both pieces of cloth to keep it in place.  Do the same thing with piece underneath except don't cut the hole to expose the magnet since it is not decorative.  Just sew it into place between the two pieces of cloth.  

The flap and underneath piece

Now they should stick together.  If your magnet is too weak to go through both pieces of cloth cut a small hole in the back of the bottle cap cloth just to make it easier for the metal to come into contact with the magnet.  Another way to make it work better is to flatten the bottle cap down at the edges.

Hard to see but the underneath piece "stuck" to flap and hanging by the magnetic connection

Welcome to The Yarn's Over

I want to welcome all who are joining my story here at The Yarn's Over.  First this is technically about crochet but really I will include any crafting, re-purposing stories that are fun as well.  This is about the various adventures and misadventures I have trying to be a crocheter in Tanzania while I am serving as a missionary.  As part of this adventure and a recurring story line will be the fact I started a crochet class at the ministry site after some of the school teachers and medical clinic staff saw me making things in the evening and asked I teach them how to do it.

A flyer on the Crochet Class program in Tanzania

Let's start with why I called the blog "The Yarn's Over."  It is a play on words using the common crochet term, yarn over, and the fact that there really is not a word for yarn in Swahili the native language.  There are two words in most Swahili-English dictionaries.  The first uza wa kufumia actually is talking about string but describes it in such a way that most people can guess it is actually yarn (unless you are in a store looking for it and then they just bring you string).  The second word though hadithi is actually defined as telling a story, similar to "He spins a good yarn."  So hopefully my hadithi will not be over soon but hopefully it makes sense now.

So why teach a class on crochet to folks in a country where they don't even have a word for yarn or really crochet for that matter?  They asked and I could not resist.  Also there are a lot of items in the rural area of the medical clinic and pre-school that are not available.  You would have to go to a bigger city like Singida, Tanzania to purchase a dishcloth/wash clothe, sweater, stocking cap and many other items that can easily be made by crochet.  We started small with dishcloth and wash clothes and are now moving to stocking caps.  

Stocking caps are important because the majority of kids have their heads shaved to prevent lice and other issues but this leaves their scalp exposed to a very brutal sun every day. They develop many types of dermatological issues and later in life skin cancer from this exposure.  Simply crocheting a stocking cap can help these children greatly and in the best practices of mission work, we only help them get started and they do the rest.  One of the things that has amazed me is the creativity they have shown for making other items like backpacks and purses.  So a large part of this site will be exploring other ideas they can make and use or sell.

Some of the major issues we face are the lack of materials.  Yarn and needles are only available in the largest cities, such as Arusha which for our ministry site it 1.5 hours to Singida then 6 hours on bus to Arusha.  The needles are even harder to find inside the city than the yarn since the majority of work done is on knitting machines and crochet needles are typically only used to pick the string "up"

The other big issue for me  personally has been the size of the yarn and needles.  A normal needle in the USA is a somewhere between 3.25 and 5.5 mm in size.  In Tanzania the needles range from 1.0 to 1.7 mm in size.  Yarn in the states is typically 10 ply and yarn in Tanzania is a 4 ply and considered to be about fingering weight.   Below is a picture showing the size difference.

In addition to myself, I have my long time rafiki, Barnabas Bear along for the ride.  He is part of Mauldin United Methodist Church's prayer shawl ministry where we made bears for children who were sick or had gone through a traumatic event.  Barnabas, Timothy and Phoebe became our mission bears to spread the word about what our church was doing and have their own Facebook page.  Their link is at the bottom.  To find out more about our missionary adventures and travels, check out our Steve and Barnabas Blog

Barnabas Bear

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