No-Slip Headbands

No-Slip Headband

What often happens is I hear about something interesting once, then twice, as the third time comes around, I pretty much need to investigate.  A friend was singing the praises of her new no-slip headbands for working out.  They are really cute too.  I considered buying some as gifts for some of the girls in my life, but they start at $15 a piece plus shipping.  Finally after seeing more pictures of them, I did a quick search and found that there are tons of DIY tutorials about making these type of no-slip headbands.

Coupons in hand, I headed off to Hobby Lobby.  They seem to have a better selection of ribbon and according to their website, carry a variety of velvet ribbon.  The construction of these headbands is quite simple.  On top is a layer of decorative ribbon, on the bottom a layer of velvet ribbon which provides the grip, and a 5-6.5" length of 3/8" elastic on the back.  I found many ribbon designs I liked, but restrained myself as the ribbon wasn't on sale this week.  I bought three decorative ribbons and two velvet ribbons.  All of the ribbon was 7/8" wide.

I had measured my daughter's head in the morning all the way around and also from earlobe to earlobe across her forehead.  She is 9.5 years old and I went with 15" of decorative ribbon and 5.5" of elastic.  Using a 1/4" seam allowance I sewed the elastic between the right sides of each end of the ribbons.  Then turning the ribbon so it's wrong sides touching, I top stitched the two ribbons together on the long sides.  Done!  I did experiment with using iron on adhesive tape, but just holding everything together worked fine for me.

These headbands go together very quickly.  I made a couple as gifts, some for my older daughter, some for my younger daughter (13" ribbon, 6" elastic), and one for me (16" ribbon, 6" elastics) to try and soon all the velvet ribbon was gone.  I did dip into my ribbon stash from my hair bow making days for some of these.  I found that if my ribbon was too narrow compared to the velvet, layering two decorative ribbons together worked fine.

Layered Ribbon No-Slip Headband

Next up is another trip to Hobby Lobby.  They had many more ribbon options in the 1.5" width.  I will try sewing two layers right sides together and then flipping.  I probably don't even need to top stitch.  The ends will be a little different and need top stitching to hold the elastic in place, but generally that part doesn't show much.

As far as not slipping, my older daughter was amazed, they really don't slip due to the velvet layer.  Even readjusting the headband tugs at your hair if you're not careful.  To date, my younger daughter won't leave anything in her hair all day, but so far these headbands stay in much longer than anything else.  They are comfortable and stay put.