Headbands and Hairbows

We have been relatively powerless here from Friday night to Saturday night. There were occasional one hour blocks where it would come back on, but for the most part we were stuck in the sweltering hot with no electricity.

Luckily it came back on about 6pm last night and we have had no outages since. I haven't found any media reports to explain why yet but the news around town is some nong in an excavator plowed through numerous power lines and cut off the whole city's supply. The upside was I didn't have to cook last night. :o)

This is my kitty, Nutmeg sleeping on my chair. She has an inbuilt radar and everytime I get up she jumps on and makes herself comfortable.

Yesterday afternoon in an optimistic fit that the power might stay on, I decided to make Ava some headbands. Typically the power went off just as I was sewing the first seam. So I decided to make her some hair bows instead. I've never made them before, but I thought it couldn't be too hard. And it wasn't. You just loop, loop, loop and sew. I thing a good craft glue would have been better for the final middle ribbon, but I didn't have any on me at the time. I also didn't have any clips or barrettes, so these are just pictures of the ribbons waiting to be attached to something.

This is made from the leftover ribbon on Ava's play suit. It will eventually be sewn to a flat hairband of the same fabric as the top and shorts.

White ribbon with silver trim

Then I made another and attached it to a hairband.

Eventually the power seemed to be back on for good and I finished up the headband I was sewing. This is the final product

As I was sewing the long straight simple lines I thought to myself that this would be a great sewing project for an absolute beginner. For instance when your son/daughter first says they want to learn sewing.

I will include the instructions just in case someone wants to know how it was done.

1. Measure your head along the path the head band will take.
2. Cut a piece of elastic to that size. I used elastic that was 1/2 inch wide.
3. Cut two strips of material twice as long as the elastic and wide enough that the elastic will sit in the casing once sewn.
4. Put your material right sides together and and stitch up both sides. Do not stich the ends together yet.
5. This is the casing for your elastic. Now you have to turn it right side around.
   
6. Start by turning one end inwards. Catch that end with a long safety pin and slowly turn the casing back in on itself.
7. Thread the elastic through the casing with a safety pin.
8. Sew the elastic to one end.
   
9. Bunch the material up over the elastic until the safety pin comes out the other end.
10. Sew the elastic to that end
11. Double checking the size on head and the sew the ends together.
    
12. And there you have it, a bunched headband.
    

If someone wants me to repost this with pictures, just leave a comment.

In an effort to make correctly sized clothes for Ava I decided it might be a good idea to actually measure her. Revolutionary idea I know. Well now I just feel sorry for her. Poor thing she is 2 and she already doesn't conform to society's measuring standards! She is a size 1/2 in the chest, a 2/3 in the hips, a 2/3 in height and a 6 in the waist. She was a little bloated that day, but still it explains why she always pulls her pants down so low!

So now I am sure sure she needs a proper fitting for the jacket and I will get back to cutting that when I am done typing this.

On a parting note I am officially jealous of anyone that lives in an artistic area. We went to our local markets today for something to do. I was devastated. Everywhere you look it is just people importing junk and reselling it. Nothing unique and nothing homemade. Okay well there is some things, but its a vast minority. *Sigh*