Wrist warmers - fast gift project

Steffi has her gift project ideas calculated down to the hour:

• If she gets invited for coffee on the same day, she makes time to sew a quick key band. Takes just a few minutes
• If she has more time, like several hours or a day, she has time to sew a zipper bag

Impressive. I'm generally still pondering ideas for the first couple of days.
I did make a damn fast project this week for a colleague who is a runner. She gets cold when the temperature drops, but finds that a little wristband keeps things nicely warm.
That was a project I could tackle. I grabbed some fleece that has a stretchy side, cut a 6 1/2 inch by 4 inch strip. The 6 inch stretches almost 30%, which fits nicely over her hand.
Then I cut a piece of narrow elastic, but 6 1/4 inches long. I folded the fleece lengthwise in half, laid the elastic along the cut edge, and stitched it down the long side, pulling the elastic a little as I sewed using a stretch stitch.
One short end I sewed with the machine, but the other I sewed by hand with a blanket stitch. That produced a nice stretchy 2 inch wide band, about 6 inches long.
And damn fast, too. When everything works, it goes like this:

1. Cut  2 rectangles, 4 inches wide by the size needed to fit over your hand plus seam allowances
2. Sew the long sides of each. Elastic is optional, but will help it retain its shape longer. 
3. Sew one short side of each band by machine
4. Sew the other sides by hand. Done!

Of course, my sewing doesn't always go that smoothly. Mine is more like:

1. Cut rectangle. 
2. Realize that stretchy size is the short side, and cut rectangle again. 
3. Start sewing, break needle because you've been using the straight stitch plate on the machine.
4. Replace needle and plate. 
5. Start sewing stretch stitch, wonder why the feed dogs aren't moving the fabric.
6. Raise the feed dogs so they can actually be used.
7. Wonder why the fabric still isn't moving, realize that it's because it's so stretchy.
8. Place stabilizer under the seam.
9. Finally sew the damn seam.
10. Turn the rectangle and sew the short end with a straight stitch. 
11. Turn band inside out, connect the ends of the ring by hand. Done, but I sure could use a stiff drink about now. 

The end result: