Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Project: Joanne's Headbands

Pardon the messy hair and knobby knuckles. :-)

When my dear friend Joanne -- who, incidentally, introduced me to Fluevogs almost two years ago -- asked me to sew her up some imitation Sweaty Bands to keep her hair contained during her workouts, I was happy to say yes. I mean, she changed my life with Fluevogs; I have to pay her back somehow. ;-) But I couldn't not help after I found out how expensive Sweaty Bands are. Um, $15 to $18 for some ribbon and elastic? Say what? Worse yet, she would have ended up paying more because she needed to have them custom-made. So what's a girl to do? Well, she found this tutorial online, and when she asked me to take a look, I thought it was definitely doable.


Here's the basic outline of how to make the headband:
  • List of items needed: decorative ribbon, velvet ribbon (so the headband will stay in place on the hair), and elastic.
  • Step 1: cut the decorative ribbon and the velvet ribbon to the desired length, singe the ends, and pin ribbons together with wrong sides facing each other
  • Step 2: with the velvet side facing up, sew the edges of the ribbons together, beginning with a long edge (don't forget to backstitch at the beginning of your stitches to secure the seam)
  • Step 3: turn the corner at the first short edge, and insert the elastic in between the two layers of ribbon; sew over the three layers, backstitching at least once to fully secure the elastic (I stitched forward, then back, then forward again)
  • Step 4: turn the corner and continue sewing the second long edge
  • Step 5: turn the corner when you reach the second short edge, and insert the other end of the elastic in between the two layers of ribbon; sew over the layers, once again backstitching; this should result in the circle headband
Since we couldn't shop for the materials together given that she lives 400 miles away, she prepped everything herself. She bought the decorative ribbon (2 each of 4 designs for a total of 8 headbands), the velvet ribbon, and the elastic. She measured and cut them, singed the ends, pinned the layers together, and marked where she wanted the elastic to be inserted into the ribbons. She made it all super easy for me. (Yay for Type A personalities! Lol) The package was so neat and good-looking when I got it in the mail that I'm sorry I didn't take any photos before digging into the project.

She also chose some gorgeous ribbon. Seriously, just look at these!


When I did my test run, I found that I needed two things: 1) Fusible interfacing to bind the decorative and velvet ribbons to each other (using the heat of an iron) so that I had a stable piece when sewing the edges. (Indeed, Joanne conveniently sent me a roll of interfacing in case I needed it.) I hate crooked seams...which leads me to:

2) Invisible thread, which is basically clear polyester in thread form. I found this brief tutorial on invisible thread really helpful. For one thing, it made my life easier by telling me beforehand to pair regular thread with the invisible thread rather than trying to sew with the invisible thread on both the spool (top) and bobbin (bottom). IMPORTANT NOTE: because I was sewing with the velvet underside facing up, I needed the invisible thread on the bobbin (as the bottom thread) rather than on the spool (as the top thread). That way, the invisible thread would appear on the decorative ribbon, which is where I wanted it.

For the spool thread that will be visible on the velvet side, I would suggest using a color thread that also blends well with the decorative ribbon since tiny dots of that thread are visible on the decorative side. Here are two examples: I used white thread for the spool when sewing up a design with a white background, and you can see the white thread on the black velvet underside. For a design with a black background, I used black thread, which you can see completely disappears into the black velvet.


With Joanne's generous permission, I decided to keep two of them. The first one was my test run without the invisible thread, and the second one had a slight burn on the velvet when I turned the iron up a little to high. Oops. But they're definitely cute, and while I can't take any credit for choosing the designs, I'm glad I was able to help a good friend save some cash. :-)


xo, Gladys

17 comments:

  1. OMG Gladys, these look FANTASTIC! I can't wait til I get them in the mail:)

    Thank you so much for sewing these together for me. Having a huge noggin' is no joke when it comes to these darn headbands. Sweaty Bands was going to tack on an additional $3 per band to custom make. Boo! I'm glad that pre-prepping them helped. I wanted it to be as easy as possible for you.

    In case your readers are wondering, I bought all the ribbon here: http://www.theribbonspot.com/. Another place I thought had great ribbon was here: http://www.ribbonjar.com/.

    Sweaty Bands come in 20" as a standard adult size (18" or 19" for kids). Ideally, you want the band to be an inch or two smaller than your tilted head size. (I hope that makes sense. Basically, you measure the area where you wear the band) Since my head measurement is a little under 24", my measurements were as follows:

    The velvet was about 18" with the ribbon being slightly larger than that. You need just enough ribbon to fold under for the sewing. The elastic was about 4" and I marked it enough to tuck under the velvet and ribbon. The total measurement was a little over 21".

    After I cut the ribbon, I singed the ends using a candle, patience, and a steady hand. It's easier than it sounds:)

    Again, many thanks! I'm doing my happy dance:)

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  2. according to usps, your bands will be there tomorrow! i really hope the ones i made for you fit well. your measurements were totally on point; the ones i kept here measure 21" all the way around. i'll add that although my head is the "standard adult size," the bands with your measurements fit my head fine.

    also, i'll note that when i wore one of them for the rest of the day after sewing up the headbands, i was FULL of energy. i was jumping and dancing around, and i even tried some pull ups-- WHA...? ahahaha. those headbands are magic!

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  3. p.s. thanks so much for offering the extra info!! including the links to the ribbons. <3

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  4. See? I told you they're magic bands!

    You're most welcome for the links! Granted, I'm not trying to get anyone out of business. However, I'm glad for anyone who can make these on their own. I just made my own makeshift kindle cover. DIY projects are awesome!

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  5. haha, i wore my second one yesterday and tried more pullups! they were assisted but even one attempt is way more than i usually do in months. :-) love that you made your own kindle cover!

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  6. OMG. I'm so weak right now. I can't do pull-ups in on the machine with the highest weight setting. Terrible!

    Btw - I just got the package. YAAAY! They're awesome! You did an amazing job! Can't wait to wear it to my boxing class tomorrow:)

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  7. yay, i'm so glad you like them!! i hope they hold up to your intense workouts! xoxo

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  8. I am so excited to have found this. I'm in South Korea and I was going to order the sweaty bands because I can not find velvet anywhere here! Crazy right? Anyway, I"m going to attempt this and see how it goes :D The life of a military wife :P Thank you so much for this!!

    ~Shawna

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hi shawna! i'm very glad you found this useful for you! very good luck, and i hope you enjoy your time in south korea. i've heard wonderful things about it. (and i personally love korean food. :-))

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  9. What size velvet ribbon did you use? 7/8"... is there such a thing as 6/8" velvet ribbon... I found some decorative ribbon in 7/8" that I want to use but don't know if I can fuse the 7/8" on the 7/8" very well...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hi meghan. the decorative ribbons were about 1 5/8" and the velvet were 1 1/2" ... actually, i'd say there's less than 1/8" difference between the two sizes. if your dec ribbon and velvet ribbon are the same width, i think that would be fine. just make sure they're evenly fused together (with the fusible interfacing) before you take them to the sewing machine. hope they turn out beautifully!

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  10. Thanks for linking back to my knock off sweaty bands tutorial. I appreciate it!

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    Replies
    1. Totally welcome! Thanks for sharing your tutorial with the rest of us!

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  11. Was the "decorative" ribbon thick like the sweaty bands? I tried buying some ribbon off the self at a local craft store and it seemed really lightweight compared to the sweaty bands and then ended up puckering a bit when I was sewing it.

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    Replies
    1. The decorative ribbon was pretty heavyweight so it didn't pucker when I sewed it to the velvet. If you look at the first comment on this thread by j-ro, you'll see a couple of online places where you can find really good ribbon. Good luck!

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  12. Why does it look like your decorative ribbon is folded over at the end on the multi colored head band?

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    Replies
    1. That's right, I did decide to fold the ends of the decorative ribbon before sewing the elastic between it and the velvet ribbon. I was afraid the ends would unravel and the edges would therefore look messy.

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