Make a Headband with Maybe Matilda

Hi there! I’m Rachel, from the blog and etsy shop Maybe Matilda! I love to crochet, sew, and refashion clothing and share my projects on my blog. I wanted to share a clothing refashion project with you today–oh, the ideas I had!–but my sewing machine seems to be going through a bit of a rebellious phase at the moment (I actually hit the poor thing during our last disastrous sewing session . . . don’t feel bad for it, though, it was behaving very poorly). The inability to sew is driving me up the wall, but it at least forced me to be a bit resourceful in coming up with a fun no-sew refashion to share on A Little Tipsy today!

My husband left a few t-shirt sleeves lying around the other day after cutting them off to make tank tops for working out (yes, he’s that guy at the gym . . . I’m sorry), and I remembered a quick craft I used to do as a teenager:

Turn a cut off t-shirt sleeve into a headband! I remember making these when I was in a pinch in high school . . . headed to school, but suffering an awful hair day? Cut off a sleeve. Bam. Bad hair hidden. Going for a jog and need to keep your bangs off your face? Sleeve. Boom. Problem solved. I used to leave them plain and just wear them as simple knit headbands, but now that I’ve grown a little craftier (and am armed with a glue gun), I like to add a little embellishment to this simple headband.

And the best part is, there’s no sewing involved (take that, ornery sewing machine!). There is one teensy stitch that you can feel free to skip if you don’t want to bother with any sewing, and no one’s the wiser. Since knit fabrics don’t really fray, you don’t have to worry about any hemming at all. Just cut and go!

Want to make one yourself?

Start with a sleeve cut off from one of the many big, worn out t-shirts you probably have in your closet. Make sure the sleeve isn’t from a smaller size t-shirt, or it won’t fit over your head. My sleeve was from a men’s large shirt, and it’s a perfect fit for me. Just cut it away from the body:

Then cut off the hemmed cuff of the sleeve and the end that was connected to the body of the shirt, leaving a 2-4 inch loop with straight edges:

Since the sleeve is sewn at an angle (which you can see at the bottom of the sleeve in the picture above), you may want to trim the point down a bit–just open up the loop and trim off any odd points or straggly ends. It doesn’t have to be perfect–the ends will curl in and hide any imperfections, so don’t worry about making it exactly right.

Now for the optional sewing–you can certainly skip this part, but it’s very quick and easy and, I think, adds a little extra interest to your headband. Thread a needle (with thread that matches your sleeve–I used pink so you can see the stitches better), tie a knot in one end, and sew a few loose, wide stitches across the headband. Don’t tie off the end just yet.

Cinch up the sleeve fabric by pulling snugly on the thread. You can decide how loose or tight you want your fabric to be cinched . . . when you like the look, just tie a knot and trim the thread.

You could also stop here and sport your simple cinched headband. I wanted a little extra embellishment (I can hardly help myself), so I got out my glue gun and made a few little felt flowers (there are quite a few tutorials to make these out there, so I’m not going to repeat one here . . . but here’s a great example) and a few little leaves:

Just hot glue the embellishments right over the cinched portion of the headband:

And there you have it! A super quick and easy–not to mention really cute–headband.

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