Old Shirt to New Headband! A quick and easy tutorial

Remember Elizabeth's post about t-shirts? Well, Kaitlin decided she'd take that post and make something of it! She stole one of her dad's oversized, worn out shirts and made it into a headband.

It was really really simple. Start with your basic tee, and cut off the hem at the seam.

Now cut the bottom part of the shirt 8 inches up from the bottom all the way accross (for a thinner headband, cut at six inches instead of 8).

Great! Next, cut that ring into two strips. It's easiest to just do this at the two side edges of the shirt because you automatically get an even line.

Fold those two strips in half. If you skip this part, you'll end up with a very wide headband with raw edges instead of the smooth finish Kaitlin's had.

Since you're working with a knit fabric, you have to use a different setting on your machine. Use a ballpoint needle--always always always use ballpoint with knits. Too make sure your fabric doesn't loose its stretch, use a zig zag stitch. As a general rule, this is the best and easiest to use with knit fabrics.

Take one of the folded strips and stitch straight down the raw edges, leaving a 1/4 inch seam allowance, as shown. Repeat this step on your second strip.

This part is a little bit tough. Turn each of the strips inside out. It helps to use an object, like a pen or pair of scissors, to push the fabric through itself.

Lay out your strips and put one of them into a U formation, with the seam facing down.

Loop your second strip through the other, again keeping the seam facing down.

Pin the bottom edges of each strip to themselves, like in the picture below.

Grab a hair tie, not too big but not too small. A mid sized, unused tie works best, but you can use any as long as it's not the really small ones that work better on little kid hair.

Kaitlin had to do this part by hand. Some machines are not going to want to sew through this many layers of fabric, so get a sharp needle out and thread it. Fold one of the pinned edges around your hair tie.

Hand stitch across the pinned strip, closing the fabric around the hair tie. Repeat on the other side as well, so that each strip is wrapped around one side of the hair tie, creating a circle.

Voila! You have a brand new headband to wear. If you want to spice it up a little, you can embroider it or dye it a different color. Kaitlin likes it simple so she's keeping this one the way it is.

Easy to sew, easy to wear! Perfect to throw on hair you didn't have time to wash in the morning!

This is a great way to use up those shirts that have big logos or artwork on the front. You don't have to include the print at all, since all you use is the waist of the shirt. We're going to make a ton of them! If you want one but don't want to sew it yourself, email us and we'll make one for you! Have a great week!