Hello! It's been a while hasn't it.  My complete lack of blogging can be explained away in word word (and it's not "lazy") - it's "shingles"

Yes, I had the dreaded chicken-pox related infection over the last month.  It is as horrible as people say - very painful - but in the end I count myself as lucky as I've heard some real horror stories.

Well, in the time I haven't been blogging my hair has been growing and it's been time to do something about it. I've been tying it back using a headband I bought from Accessorize years ago. I love it but it gets a bit samey and also a bit smelly if I've been to the gym (it does happen!).  So I decided to make a new one from an old pair of jeans.

I drew out a template for the band itself using the one I already had - it really is just a piece of elastic covered in fabric attached to a more shaped piece. I just drew around the band and added 0.5 cm for a seam allowance. I then cut two pieces of denim using it on a fold each time.

Here was my template...

These two identical pieces were pinned right sides together and then I sewed around the two long edges to make an elongated tube getting wider in the middle whilst narrow at the two ends. This was then turned rightside out and I top stitched around the two long edges again just so that it would hold its shape. 

Next I cut a piece of elastic the same size as the one in my original.  Then I had a piece of luck which saved me a little time and effort - the elastic I used was the exact same thickness as the hem on the jeans. This meant I had a ready made tube to put the elastic in! In reality it would have taken 2 minutes to make up a tube from the denim but I saw this as an omen that the sewing gods were smiling on this project. 

I cut the tube to be about3 inches longer than the elastic - you need space for it to stretch into.

I threaded the elastic through the tube, holding on carefully to the elastic edges and rouching the tube along its length.  Then I stitch the two edges of the tube into the open edges of the band part - making sure you catch the elastic at both ends. This is the place that the pressure of the elastic holds so it I stitched and backstitched over it a few times for strength.

I decided to decorate mine with some fabric daisies just to make it a bit more summery.

And here it is - please excuse the armpits shot! I haven't quite worked out how to take a photo of myself whilst not contorting myself into strange angles.

This was so easy I'm going to make a load more of all the pieces of fabric I have around - I'll have headbands to match everything I've ever made!