Tutorial: How to make a baby headband from an old tee shirt

here is the tutorial finally, which I realized I'd already written ages ago, but only hadn't added the pictures... silly me.

So, I finally caved and made some headbands for my bald baby girl Lucy. I do normally get rather bored with her being mistaken for a boy, despite the bracelet she usually wears and/or pink clothing or dresses she may or not be wearing, but I am rather used to it. I had lots of practice getting used to it with my first bald baby girl Sohvi, who stayed that way until age two, at which point she started to BARELY have enough to tell it was curly.
So Lucy especially needed something feminine for our HUGE family pictures (all of my parents progeny) for which she was to be dressed all in black. So, I messed around and came up with a darling headband. My sister really liked them, so I offered to make one for my cutie niece and since I was on a roll I made a bunch more for Lucy. I love them, and am amazed and delighted that she usually leaves them alone. They are incredibly easy to make even for someone who has almost no sewing skills and most others could probably copy them easily WITHOUT the instructions.. well, here they are anyway. I still prefer to follow someone else's directions anyway (and most especially their measurements).

Supplies:
old tee-shirts -or- cute stretchy knit fabric
fake flowers
beads, or like adornments for the middle of the flower

Tools:
cutting mat and rotary cutter -or- scissors and measuring tape
hot glue gun
sewing machine

-Plug in the glue gun, so it will be ready to use later

-Cut open one of the side seams of the tee-shirt so it can lay flat.

-Cut off the bottom hem of the shirt.

-Measure and cut the fabric 3" wide for a narrow headband (smaller flower) 3 1/2" for meduim, and 4" for large. I used about 16" long for one of Lucy's, she was 14 months old then, and they still fit at 22 months (she has a big head too)... it also depends on how stretchy your shirt is. Fortunately being stretchy makes being exact not matter so much. Measure your child's head and if you're using normal tee-shirt fabric add an inch. If it has lycra or spandex in it, don't add anything.

-fold lengthwise with the right sides together

- stitch with a zigzag seam with a 1/4" seam allowance. (or serge it, if you are lucky enough to have one)

-turn right side out. You can press it if you are the kind of person who uses an iron while you sew, but its knit so you don't need to.

-fold in half

-sew the ends together with a straight stitch and a 1/2" seam allowance.

- open up the seam in the middle.


-over stitch the ends of the seam so they lay flat.

-trim off excess material.

Head band is done if you don't want to embellish it with a flower (like if you had cute material to start with)

Adding decorations: (you can also add a loop around the band and add flowers to clips and have the decoration be interchangeable, but for kids the more parts there are that come off, usually do)

-take apart your fake flowers (pull apart all the plastic stuff) so you only have the fabric 'petal' part. I usually use more than one set of petals even if they weren't meant to be that way, it gives the flowers more depth and they look fuller and therefore nicer.

-glue each set of 'petals' separately to the middle of the headband. (that way you can wear it on either side of baby's face)

-glue on the middle embellishment, bead, crystal, middle of the fake flower (cut off whatever you need to, to make it glue on flat) whatever.

-put it on your darling bald little baby girl and hope she leaves it on.


You're done... see, its really easy! And pretty dang cheap!