Afternoon Quickie: Headbands

My daughter has a little friend and her mom is my bestie. She just had a birthday and we wanted to tuck something extra in her gift. My daughter came up with the idea of giving her some headbands, because this little girls does love her headbands. I love that my daughter is beginning to understand how to pick out a gift for someone and she's moving from giving them something she would want to thinking about them and what they would want. :) We (okay, pretty much I) whipped these up in a couple afternoons (one headband would technically be an afternoon quickie.)

Can you tell the birthday girl's favourite colour is purple? These are fabric covered, plastic headbands. The cheapie kind you can get at Target. They usually come in colours that matches nothing in little girl's wardrobe. :) Normally fabric is glued to the headbands, and while my love for my glue gun is just as strong as yours, I prefer to hand sew the fabric to my headbands. Its less messy, portable and I feel like they are more durable. 

To make the headbands, you ll need:

Fabric, cut or ripped into 1 to 1.5" strips (you can also use ribbon)

Needle and thread

Scissors

Plastic headband

To begin, place one end of the fabric under one end of the headband and fold one edge over to the front of the headband as shown, stitch a couple of times to secure. And for goodness, gracious sake, get a manicure if you're going to put a close up of your fingers on your blog!!

Fold the other side of the fabric over the top of the headband and stitch.  You want to use small, tight stitches on the inside of the headband, the part that will be facing the wearer's head. Keep the stitches tight and use the stitch to pull the fabric tight around the headband. 

Then fold the fabric up from the bottom and wrap around the headband. Add a couple stitches.

Now you'll just wrap and stitch your way around the headband using small, tight stitches. Keep your stitches on the underside of the headband so they won't be seen when the headband is being worn. If you run out of fabric, just add in another strip. Since you are stitching as you wrap its no big deal. :) When you get to the end of the headband repeat the steps at the beginning, folding the fabric over the end of the headband. 

Now add your embellishment! For this headband, I chose a simple, little bow. For my 4" bow, I used an 8x3" rectangle of fabric. Fold the long (7") ends in toward the center. 

Then fold the short ends in toward the center. You'll want the ends to just overlap a bit. 

Pinch the center with your thumb and forefinger to give it a nice, bow shape.

And sew it to the headband.

Keeping your needle and thread attached (don't snip the thread yet) take another rectangle of fabric, this time 1x2" and fold the long sides in toward the center. 

This is for the bow center, you'll wrap it around the middle of the bow and the headband. Place one end of the fabric on the underside of the headband, and stitch along the unfinished edge.

Then warp it around the headband and the bow, snip off the end because you'll have excess fabric, fold the end under just a teensy bit and sew along the other unfinished edge. all the sttiches are on the underside of the headband so they don't show. 

Ta-daa!! You have a cute, little bow headband!

I did one with a little fabric flower. The tut for the flower can be found here.

I also did one with 1" grosgrain ribbon. I sewed several ribbon roses to the headband and this one ended up being my favourite. I hear its the birthday girl's favourite too. :)

Custom headbands are quick, easy and inexpensive to make. If they stayed on my daughter's head longer than a couple hours before they were "itchy and headachey" I'd probably make on out of scraps of every little outfit I made her. :) 

Have a fabulous week!


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