Lunch Hour Crafts #1- Recycled T-Shirt Headband

Welcome to the first craft tutorial to grace this blog. It has been a long time coming…the recent hiatus has been a time for me to move home and get some new ideas for things to show you. So, without further ado, let’s make:

First, you need to find a t-shirt that you don’t mind cutting up. Now, the best kind of shirt for this project are the very basic heavy ones (Gildan/Hanes etc) that you pick up for free at every event of your life. Don’t worry, it will become something more exciting than the frosh shirt it started as. Don’t use nicer ones (American Apparel) because they’re too stretchy. And you might like to wear those still. The free-shirts? You won’t wear them again, I promise. Make them into headbands.

Take the t-shirt, smooth out the wrinkles, and cut off the bottom hem band. You won’t need it. This would be a good time to use a rotary cutter, if you have one…but if not, scissors are fine. Try to cut it nicely. Next, cut a 3.5″ section (about the length of your pointer finger) from the bottom of the t-shirt (where the hem used to be). This will become your headband!

Take that 3.5″ strip (which is a loop/band), and pick a spot to cut it so that it is not a loop anymore. It should now be a long strip that is 3.5″ wide. Measure the circumference of your head where you would place your headband. Mine is 22″. Cut a piece from the t-shirt strip that is TWO INCHES (2″) LESS than your head size. So my strip was 20″ long.

Sew the 20″ strip back into a loop. If you can tell which side of the shirt is the inside vs. outside, you may want to sew it with the nice sides together so that they end up on the outside. Sew it with a 1/4″ hem, and go over the whole thing twice. Nice and strong.

You’re done! You now have a headband. Because t-shirt material doesn’t really fray, you don’t have to hem the edges (although you could…) and so your headband is ready to wear. Wait, though…there is more. Headbands are made for embellishment.

You could definitely play around with the size and shape of embellishment pieces. For this one, I cut 8 pieces out of what was left of the 3.5″ strip. Each piece was roughly shaped like a peanut and was 1.5″ wide at each end.

Take these pieces and pinch/scrunch each one in the middle and lay them on top of the hem of your headband. You could pin them, or you could just hold them down one by one as you sew over them. Sew them in place directly on top of the hem.

There go the first few…

…and the rest!

Go back over them again, just to keep them extra secure. Clip any little threads, and you’re done!

This can definitely be embellished more, so play around with it. Bonus marks for anyone who breaks out the bedazzler.